


Breaking the Time Loop

by Asukachan07



Series: WestAllen AUs [2]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Inspired by another Fanfiction, KillerVibe - Freeform, Multiverse, Rated Mature for macabre stuff, Savitar is his own warning, What's the name of the Savitar/Iris ship?, and some romance, and some violence, doppelgangers, so you've been warned, westallen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-06-22 05:40:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 64,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19660969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asukachan07/pseuds/Asukachan07
Summary: (New Summary!)Savitar kills Iris on May 23, 2017, and steals the speed force bazooka to use it towards his plan to become a god. Of course, everything goes awry after his victory.Barry gets stuck on Earth 51, where meta powers are blocked by a global dampening signal, and his now dead doppelgänger used to be a high profile criminal.Cisco's awesome so he gets occasional POVs.





	1. Another Turn of Events—Cisco (Vibe)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Thesis of the Cruel Speed God](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12235263) by [amarielah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amarielah/pseuds/amarielah). 



> Inspired by the oneshot linked above. Reading it will spoil one of the plot points, but there are a few others not connected to amarielah's work.  
> This first chapter is in Cisco's POV (see end notes). The rest of the fic will be mostly a combo of Iris/Barry and Savitar/Barry POVs.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cisco's saved from a cold death by Savitar, who's actually not who Cisco expected him to be.

As icy vapor emerged from Killer Frost’s hands, Cisco reflected that there were worse ways to go. Although he’d naively hoped not to die in a fight, he’d known the risks of getting killed in action ever since becoming a founding member of Team Flash.

At least he wasn’t being slaughtered by some anonymous metahuman of the week. If anyone deserved to take his life, it was Caitlin, without whom he would’ve died many times over.

But goddamn it, this leather-clad platinum-haired femme fatale wasn’t even Caitlin, it was her evil alter ego. Cisco knew that if Cait ever got back control of her body, she’d never forgive herself for his death.

“Bye-bye, Vibe,” the frosty, echoey voice of the ice metahuman said as she drew both her hands back, and Cisco forced himself to look into her eyes until the very end.

A sharp gust of wind caught the breacher’s attention, and he looked over Frost’s shoulder to see Savitar’s bulky suit.

“Keep him alive,” the modified voice of Barry’s evil time remnant ordered.

“What? Why?” Killer Frost asked as she glanced behind her, her hands frozen (ha!) in the air.

Cisco was half-way through a sigh of relief when he saw what was dangling off the mechanical hand of Team Flash’s enemy.

The speed force bazooka. The ultimate weapon against Savitar, which Barry was supposed to use to send him back to his speed force jail.

If Savitar had it, then Barry had failed, and Iris…

“Because I need him to build something for us,” Savitar replied as he slightly waved the large gun.

“You’re even more insane than I thought, if you think that I’m going to help you after you’ve just killed Iris!” Cisco shouted as he scrambled back to his feet, ignoring the aches all over his body to gear up for a final stand down.

But when he straightened to his full height, the engineer saw that he wasn’t in the forest anymore, but standing in a warehouse.

Belatedly, Cisco felt the sharp dizziness that came with moving faster than the speed of sound. He removed his goggles to have his eyes adjust to the dimly lit building faster.

“The hell,” he whispered as he heard an odd whirring sound to his left.

He watched, half-fascinated half-freaked out, as Savitar’s suit pulled open at the spine, and Barry’s disfigured clone rolled up to standing before stepping down and out of the armor.

“I’m glad that you’re not the one who made this, it would’ve worked otherwise,” Savitar commented as he hefted the speed force bazooka off the floor and casually walked towards a door.

Realizing that Savitar had left Killer Frost behind, Cisco promptly extended an arm ahead of him to open a breach to STAR labs.

Only nothing happened, and for a second vibe thought that he had exhausted his powers while fighting Killer Frost.

But when he heard Savitar scoff behind him, he noted that he couldn’t feel even a spark of transdimensional energy around him.

“A transdimensional energy disruptor,” Barry’s evil twin explained as he leaned against the doorframe of what looked like a lab, much better lit than the room Cisco was stupidly standing in. “Took me forever to install it, unlike the GPS signal blocker.”

Ramon rolled his eyes, belying the dread that settled in his guts as he realized that his friends wouldn’t be able to track him.

“Let’s get this over with,” he said firmly as he put his goggles back on and balled his hands into fists at his sides. “You might as well kill me now, because I sure as hell won’t help you in whatever evil plan you have in mind.”

Cisco blinked in surprise as Savitar sighed in a very Barry kind of way.

“Come on, Cisco, _think_ ,” Savitar demanded as he stared him straight in the eyes, his intense gaze made even creepier by his discolored right eye. “Why would I do everything that I’ve done, huh?”

“How the hell would I know,” the engineer talked back instead of answering, “even a genius like me can’t comprehend villain’s logic on a...”

Wait.

Yes, Cisco could never put himself in a villain’s shoes, but this wasn’t your average villain. This was literally his best friend from a different timeline.

Sure, the becoming a god business was far from original, but why would any version of Barry want to abuse his speedster powers?

Easy answer: to bring back his loved ones. Barry had already done it, and it had been a disaster for everyone. According to Savitar himself, Flashpoint had created this timeline where Iris died. And future Barry had been certain that Iris’ death was inevitable.

After all, there was no escaping a closed time loop… Unless one could defy the laws of the universe.

“You want to be a god to evade the paradox,” Cisco hypothesized, his wide eyes taking in the slow lift of Savitar’s lips. “But why kill Iris still?”

Savitar’s smile collapsed, and he released a frustrated exhale as he looked up the high ceiling. He then lowered his head, shaking it slightly as he brought a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“So close,” the speedster said sharply as he took his hand off his face and placed his thumb and index fingers in position to make the popular hand sign for ‘just a little bit.’ “I guess I’ll have to use an incentive to get you to work with me after all.”

“There’s nothing you could give me that would make me work with a murderer like you,” Ramon asserted with all the disdain he could muster in his voice and on his face.

“Not even the cure that would bring Caitlin back?” Savitar asked smugly before turning around and going back into the other room.

Cisco stood still in shock for a minute, then warily followed the speedster.

The brightly lit room looked like a cool hybrid between Cisco’s own workshop and an expensive version of Barry’s lab at CCPD.

Additionally, beyond what looked like a double seal glass door - Cisco guessed that the building used to be a biochemical facility - there was a well-equipped infirmary.

“Figures that _your_ lair would be a discount STAR Labs,” the engineer drawled as he finished his inspection of the place.

His eyes landed on the bench Savitar was standing by, a small storage box at its center.

Barry’s future time remnant phased a gloved hand through the box and retrieved a cylindrical glass vial from it. It contained an unfamiliar purplish liquid, which Cisco assumed to be the cure for Caitlin.

“How did you figure it out?” he questioned. “Killer Frost can’t use Caitlin’s medical knowledge, not that she would help erase herself if she could. You’re a biochemist and a fast learner, but I doubt that you even care enough to put this much work…”

“Dr. Tannhauser did it,” Savitar cut him off as he threw the precious vial at Cisco, making him shuffle clumsily across the room to catch it before it could break on the floor.

“You kidnapped Caitlin’s mother!?” Vibe asked in horror.

“I didn’t need to,” the speedster assured as he removed his glove and crossed his arms over his chest before pointing at the vial with his chin. “I just had to tell her about what happened to her daughter, and give her a few samples of Killer Frost’s blood. She came up with a gene therapy to silence the meta DNA, very quickly in fact. She mentioned something about similarities to her late husband’s research on cryogenic medicine.”

Something about Savitar’s tone made Cisco stare at him with a new lens, forcing himself to silence his hatred for Iris’ killer.

And what Francisco Ramon observed then was a Barry Allen trying hard not to burst from excitement at a ground-breaking discovery.

“Cryogenic medicine,” the engineer repeated, taking his gaze off his enemy to look back at the window of the medical lab next door.

An unfamiliar vertical scanner caught his eye. It was connected to a life signs monitor on one side, and to what Cisco would have said was a glovebox on the other. But that glovebox looked different from the all the gloveboxes the scientist had seen before, and different even from the glovebox present on this side of the double glass door.

From what Cisco could tell, the glove sleeves hanging off the contraption weren’t made of the standard butadiene or neoprene polymer most labs used. They looked much thinner, as if they were meant to let through whatever substance was on the hands of their handlers.

Cisco blinked, then looked at Savitar, then back at the scanner, which most definitely was not a scanner. Back at Savitar.

“You started building a cryogenic chamber,” the engineer said, realization dawning. “That’s what you need my help for, to make sure it works.”

Savitar nodded as he uncrossed his arms.

“Once we’re done testing it with Killer Frost, you can use the cure on her and I’ll let you both go,” the speedster promised.

“And what’s that for?” Cisco pointed at the speed force bazooka, placed on a far away bench.

“To open a portal into the speed force,” Savitar explained.

“Yeah, that was the plan, and you said yourself that it didn’t work,” the engineer pointed out. “It’s going to be hard for me to figure out why since I didn’t build it myself.”

Ramon internally winced at the way he was already implying that he'd go along with the evil speedster's plan.

“I don’t need it to do what it was intended for,” Savitar assured him. “I need it to open a portal that will let me extract speed force to enhance my powers without getting detected.”

Cisco almost dropped Caitlin’s cure when, finally, all the disconnected pieces of the puzzle that was Savitar suddenly fell into place in his mind.

“Holy moly,” he whispered as he stared at Barry’s time remnant, who gave him a tiny knowing smile.

“Caitlin will be here shortly,” Savitar informed him, “let’s get a head start,” he added, and Cisco didn’t even get irritated at him for bossing him around.

After all, Savitar would be a god very soon, he had all the rights to do that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is greatly appreciated! I started the story with Cisco's POV because he's been underused and/or mistreated by the show writers since S3. I won't make that mistake.
> 
> I'm hoping to update on a weekly basis, and I outlined the whole story to fit 10 chapters or less. We'll see how it goes!


	2. Another Way—Barry/Iris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Flash can't find Savitar anywhere, but Harry arrives on Earth 1 with a viable solution to get Jay Garrick out of the Speed Force.
> 
> Iris didn't die. Or did she?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the second chapter, five days ahead of schedule! Like a dork I decided that this fandom deserves fast updates.
> 
> If this felt too long, I'll gladly make the next chapters shorter. I got carried away with Barry's section - it was supposed to only be two paragraphs long!  
> I'm still figuring out Iris' POV, but hopefully it worked here.

He and Wally had looked everywhere. They had run for hours on end scouring every corner of the planet, returned to every abandoned building Cisco had vibed using Killer Frost’s clothes multiple times, the whole team taking shifts to keep them under surveillance every hour of the day for three days. Until Cisco had returned, Felicity had helped Barry, Wally, Julian and Joe hack every useful satellite orbiting around the planet and comb through millions of camera feeds to make sure that Savitar wasn’t just running too fast for them to catch.

There were no signs of Savitar.

No signs of Iris’ murderer.

“He’s on another earth,” Barry voiced what he knew Cisco had been hesitant to suggest the very first day he had returned to STAR Labs.

Standing in the middle of the cortex, the speedster looked away from the screen projecting Felicity’s report on the satellite data to glance at the breacher, who looked gaunt from overusing his powers. He did smile or crack a joke now and then, but 'exhausted' had been Francisco Ramon’s signature state for the past few days.

Or maybe that was his grieving face. Barry had no memory of his best friend following the days of Dante’s death, so he had no points of comparison.

Barry knew how he himself looked, he checked in the mirror every day after mentally tallying the days without Iris. To see if he hadn’t turned into a literal ghost of himself.

When it had sunk in that he wouldn't get to see, touch, smell or hear Iris in person ever again, Barry had thought that he’d looked as haggard as after his first failed attempt to rescue his mom from Thawne, or as devastated as after witnessing Zoom kill his dad.

Instead, he only looked numb. He hadn’t shed a tear ever since he let Joe take Iris’ body off his arms two weeks ago, not even at her funerals.

He felt numb too, a bone-deep constant fatigue his only indicator that he was actually still alive.

Barry couldn’t comprehend that he could still draw breaths days after Iris had taken her last. Or that the sun was still shining over his head, when the light of his life had winked out of existence. It shouldn’t be possible.

The only reason he hadn’t contemplated suicide to fix this injustice was because, even though Iris Ann West had been the best part of Bartholomew Henry Allen’s world, he still had other parts of it that needed his attention: wayward metahumans, normal criminals, his friends, Wally, and of course Joe. Like he’d told his future self, he would never break the promise he made to Iris.

But he was still being withdrawn from everything. He was impassive to the Wests' grief. The only support he could provide was holding Joe's hands whenever he wept for his baby girl, or sitting down in complete silence with Wally on top of the new car Iris’ brother had sworn to never take for a race.

He nodded perfunctorily at the words of condolences whispered to him at CCPD, and ignored the pitying gaze Captain Singh gave him when he reiterated that he didn’t need to take his overdue paid vacation. He offered a flat smile while stuffing bills into the donation jar when the baristas at Jitters gave him an extra shot Americano and a cronut on the house.

Dressed as Flash, he shrugged at the criminals, human or meta, who never saw him coming and fumed in frustration or anger at being dropped in an anonymous cell at CCPD or Iron Heights.

He checked in with Cisco and Caitlin when they prompted him via the com in his costume or by text, but left them alone at STAR Labs unless the whole team was meeting for an update on the search on Savitar. Like today.

Next to the exhausted Vibe stood a rosy-cheeked Caitlin, her hand on his shoulder.

Five days ago, both had reappeared at STAR Labs, Caitlin back with no knowledge of how she’d suppressed Killer Frost, Cisco claiming that they had both lost the memory of the past nine days.

The only solid fact that the breacher had gathered from his many vibes was that Savitar had been with them during most of those nine days in one of the warehouses he had bought anonymously, which was currently empty.

The team had been ecstatic to welcome Caitlin back, though her reception had been subdued due to the recent events.

Julian had stopped showing up to STAR Labs the day after the medical doctor had returned, and today was his first day back. He looked sour, intermittently eyeing the two former STAR Labs employees.

Unlike Barry, who simply couldn’t smile genuinely anymore, Albert wasn’t overly cheerful because Caitlin and Cisco had become a couple over the duration of their nine days away. Had Barry not surprised them kissing in Cisco’s workshop himself, he wouldn’t have known about them becoming lovers.

He wished he cared. Caitlin looked happier than Barry had seen her in a long time, happier even than the few days she’d had with Ronnie. After Zoom and Killer Frost, she deserved to find a long-lasting source of joy.

Cisco was more subdued about his joy at being with Caitlin, possibly because he’d had to break up with Cynthia, and also because he felt terrible for not being able to recall what Savitar did to him and Caitlin - other than wipe out their memories.

An alarm blaring in the room brought the scarlet speedster back from his musing, and before Cisco looked down at the screen to see that they had been triggered by the detectors in the basement, both Barry and Wally were there.

Intellectually, Barry knew that only friends were likely breach into STAR Labs from their earth, but a hopeful part of him wished that Savitar would use it to return from whichever earth he had gone to.

Of course, the team had checked every nanosecond of the video feed of the basement, and there had been no signs of Savitar on them.

So it was no surprise that Earth 2 Harrison Wells was the one to step onto the platform of the destroyed speed cannon.

Interestingly, the genius was carrying a sizable gun of his own.

“Gentlemen,” Harry acknowledged the two speedsters without stopping his determined stride towards the cortex.

“Ramon,” he said once he was there, going to a desk to drop his large contraption.

“Hi Harry, good to see you too Harry,” Cisco greeted sarcastically before pushing off his seat to check on the gun.

“What’s that?” Joe asked as the whole team converged towards the table.

“The prototype of an inter-dimensional quantum sonar,” Wells promptly answer.

“You figured out how to calibrate the initial velocity?” Wally questioned with hope in his wide eyes.

“No, but that’s what Cisco is here for,” Harry stated confidently.

“I’m always here, you’re the one who came from another world,” the Earth 1 genius deadpanned as he peered at the controls of the gun.

Wells gave him a minute to inspect his creation, which was more than anyone in the room had expected.

“Ramon,” the older Earth 2 genius prompted impatiently.

“First of all,” Cisco said with a dramatic lift of a hand, which he spun in a circle as he added “need to make sure we’re all on the same page here. Is this what I think this is?”

“Yes, it's a device programmed to open a two-ways portal into the Speed Force towards anyone whose DNA is encoded here,” Wells explained succinctly as he pointed to the large barrel of the gun.

“I don’t know why I even tried,” Cisco commented with an exasperated sigh, which made Joe, Wally, Caitlin and Julian chuckle.

“How long until we can test it,” Barry heard himself ask as he mentally listed out the missing components of the device.

He’d had little time to think about Jay, but should have guessed that Wally and Harry would do better. Wally felt responsible for Jay’s voluntary imprisonment in the Speed Force, and Harry didn’t like having his daughter on a foreign Earth to replace the older speedster.

“If you work out what’s left to assemble it faster than Kid Flash here came up with the blueprints, and Ramon doesn’t slow me down? Three weeks,” Wells speculated with a pointed look at the younger engineer.

“Wait, you were in on that? Since when?” Joe questioned Wally, who avoided his gaze but shrugged.

“I still don’t know what’s going on,” Julian admitted, staring at Harry.

Right. This was the first time that Julian met this Harrison Wells.

H.R. was avoiding the team out of guilt for disclosing Iris’ location to Savitar. The team only let him be for now because he was with Tracy Brand, and not alone in his grief.

“Who are you?” Wells bluntly asked.

“Julian Albert, I’m Barry’s lab supervisor at CCPD,” the British CSI introduced himself, knowing better than to extend his arm for a handshake.

“Another genius?” The Earth 2 scientist inquired with interest.

“Uh, not to my knowledge,” Julian replied with a belated glance at Cisco who had been shaking his head to discourage him from engaging Wells.

“Got powers?” the engineer asked next as he crossed his arms over his chest, seizing up the younger man.

“Neither,” the historian replied quietly.

“Still more useful than that H.R., I’m sure,” Wells declared as he uncrossed his arms to grab the straps of the inter-dimensional quantum sonar.

“Ramon,” he grunted as he headed out of the room, likely towards Cisco’s workshop.

“If I manage to figure out the formula within a week, Imma give it a better name,” the younger engineer warned as he followed Wells.

“I still don’t know what they were talking about,” Joe confessed.

“Instead of using Cisco’s vibe to get into the Speed Force, we could use Harry’s machine to open a breach into it, the way the philosopher's stone could.” Wally explained. “I only helped with the blueprint of the gun, I don’t know how it actually works.”

“Harry wants to convert dark matter sequences in the DNA into a precise quantum frequency, which only works for speedsters,” Barry elaborated. “That’s why the barrel is so big, to generate the frequency like a radio. And that long chamber running along the muzzle is to ensure a high enough initial velocity, so that the pulsed frequency can bounce back indefinitely across the Speed Force. Cisco needs to help Wells figure out that initial velocity. We’d have to test it on me first, I assume. Once we have it figured out, we could get to Jay.”

“We don’t have Jay Garrick’s DNA sequence,” Caitlin pointed out.

“There’s gotta be skin cells on his hat, I’ll check,” the CSI reassured.

“But how can Jay leave the Speed Force without Savitar to replace him?” Joe questioned cautiously.

“We’ll catch the bastard, sooner or later,” Wally asserted firmly.

“Even if we don’t…” Barry started, and was shocked by the mild excitement the beginning on a hypothesis brought up.

He sighed audibly - in relief or disappointment, he couldn’t tell - when he felt the feeling disappear the second he was aware of it.

“Bear?” Joe called out.

“I’ll figure out a way,” he promised with a nod. “There’s always another way.”

He couldn’t save Iris, but he would try his hardest not to let his father’s doppelganger and fellow speedster rot in the Speed Force.

* * *

Awareness came slowly to Iris. She could blame it on the luxurious comfort of the bed she slept on. The sheets were Egyptian cotton, which clued the journalist that she wasn’t in her own bed at the loft.

Iris only knew about the feel of Egyptian cotton because Linda had dragged her to a luxury furniture store after writing a piece about the effects of sleep on athletic performance. The two reporters had fantasized about getting luxury beds for themselves once they got a raise at CCPN.

She had probably mentioned it to Barry at some point, because he had gotten them a silk set for their first month at the loft. It was very nice, smooth and cool to the touch, very distinct from the denser but equally luxurious high thread count cotton.

Clearly, she wasn’t in the infirmary at STAR Labs nor a hospital, though that was where she had expected to be if she had survived the stab wound Savitar had been supposed to kill her with.

With a shocking absence of pain - only a mild body soreness, the kind she got from sleeping poorly or for too long - and rising anxiety, the young woman rolled to her side and peered at her surroundings.

Huh.

Either Iris was in a five star hotel suite, or she was dreaming of her ideal home. She refused to even entertain the third option, that she was in heaven, because that would be acknowledging her death. Plus, her idea of heaven, like that of many people, was of a boringly peaceful place where everything was emptily white, not of a high end bedroom with mahogany hardwood floors and golden accents complimenting the earth tones of oddly-shaped but classy furniture.

“Hello?” she called out quietly as she slipped off the bed, ignoring comfy slippers to walk around barefoot. Oh yeah, that was definitely the hardwood floor of her dreams.

The dim lights of the night stand switched off and invisible ceiling lights brightened the room, broadcasting its luxury even more clearly.

Only then did Iris notice that she was covered in a short satin lavender nightgown. Although she didn’t remember owning it, it definitely was a piece she’d buy for herself. Barry could have easily bought it for her, knowing her tastes.

Dread settled in her chest as she thought of Barry. Had he created another Flashpoint to undo her death? Was that why this place was unfamiliar to her, because she had woken up in a different timeline?

But that couldn’t be it. Only Barry himself could be aware of the changes in the timeline.

Just as she finished the thought, a familiar whip of air alerted her of a new presence in the spacious bedroom.

Iris felt pressure lift from her chest as she gazed at an oddly-dressed Barry, whose relief was palpable as he took her in.

“Iris,” he said breathily.

His voice was full of longing, which she was used to; but it was also full of delight, which had been missing in their lives for months.

“You woke up,” he stated in awe as he stepped towards her with extended arms.

“Barry!” Iris called back, whimpering in relief as she met him halfway, hugging him tightly.

She attributed the tensing of his shoulders to his fear of hurting her.

His reaction made her conclude that she hadn’t died after Savitar had stabbed her. Against all odds, she had survived the wound, but had probably been unconscious or in a coma for a while.

“How long?” she asked him as she pulled back from his chest, but kept her hands on his arms to let him feel that she was right there with him. She was alive and hale, not weak like he expected.

“Two weeks,” he replied insightfully, his eyes searching her face, probably looking for any sign of pain in her facial expression.

“I’m okay,” she reassured him with two vigorous nods and a wide smile, which were easy to give considering that the nightmare was finally over.

“I’m okay Barry, I’m alive,” she added as she snuggled back into his chest, bringing her arms around his torso to squeeze him with all the love and happiness spilling out of every pore of her being.

“That’s not my name,” Barry said softly, and only then did Iris realize that he hadn’t hugged her back, either time.

Something in Iris died, and she froze on the spot.

Even with her face plastered to his chest, she could picture his appearance, which she had barely registered before rushing to him: his hair was different, hair swept forward to cover his forehead, and he was dressed all in black.

Savitar.

But, his face! He didn’t have a scar!

“Where’s Barry!” Iris questioned as she finally jumped back from the man who had stabbed her two weeks ago - if she could trust his words, which she was oddly inclined to do.

Savitar looked at her, and yes, now she could tell that it was the darker version of the man she loved, his eyes narrowing in anger at the mention of Barry.

“Where is Barry? Answer me!” Iris demanded loudly again, her body shaking with fear as well as the frustration at being afraid of someone who looked exactly like the love of her life.

“You need to eat,” Savitar said apropos of nothing, taking a slow step back. “I’ll make you something. Do you have any preference?”

“Are you kidding me?” came out of Iris’ lips before she could think any better. “You’ve terrorized me for months, you’ve stabbed me, kidnapped me, and now you expect me to play house with you?”

She braced for Savitar’s furious reaction, but he merely winced in shame.

Winced. In shame. Just like Barry would do any time Iris accused him of patronizing her because she didn’t have superpowers.

It was so very hard to tell the two of them apart now that Savitar’s scars were gone and he wasn’t glaring darkly at her. Barry had always liked changing hairstyles, so Iris’ brain couldn’t fully process the fundamental difference between the man in front of her and her fiancé.

She glanced around her, noticing three doors leading away from the huge bedroom. One led to her freedom, while the other two were likely for the closet and bathroom matching the grandeur of this master bedroom.

Oh god, she had been here for fourteen days! Savitar had seen her naked. Not just that - after all, he did see her naked every time Barry did - but he had _touched_ her. He had changed her clothes and had definitely bathed her, because she didn’t feel gross like she had after her three days being hospitalized last year.

Iris herself had touched Savitar. She had hugged him just a minute ago. Ugh!

“Iris,” Savitar called, and she frowned at how he even sounded like Barry now, while before his voice had held a distinct rasp and had been half a pitch lower than Iris’ lover.

“I can explain…” the black-clad speedster dared tell her, and the journalist snapped.

“Shut up!” she spat at her abductor as she kept her gaze down, unable to sound so harsh while looking at the face she adored.

Her body was buzzing with righteous anger, though. “I don’t wanna know what twisted excuse you have fabricated this time to justify your quest to become a god. I want to know where we are and where my family is!”

Silence stretched as her request was left unanswered, and Iris had to look up to glare at Savitar.

She found herself intrigued by the unreadable expression on his unscarred face.

How had he gotten rid of those deep scars? They had looked like even his speedster metabolism couldn’t heal them.

“I’m not just a speedster anymore,” Savitar told her, as if he’d read her thoughts.

Oh God.

OH GOD.

He’d done it. In the two weeks Iris had been unconscious, the evil time remnant of Barry had acquired more meta powers, and made himself virtually invincible.

What chance did she have now, if he could not only outrun her but also anticipate her moves by reading her mind?

“I can’t read people’s minds,” Savitar said with a slow shake of his head, contradicting the fact that he’d just replied to Iris’ thought. “That’s not what I meant by becoming a god.”

“Right,” the journalist deadpanned. Any future version of Barry should know better than to lie to her so blatantly.

“Iris, we’ve been best friends all our lives, I don’t need superpowers to know what you think when you look at the right side of my face,” Savitar pointed out.

“ _Barry_ and I have been best friends all our lives,” Iris corrected immediately, “and he can’t always tell what I think, definitely not word for word.”

“I’ve had centuries to reminisce every memory I have of you,” the time remnant reminded, taking an ominous step towards her. “I know you more than he ever will.”

“Stay away from me,” Iris demanded as she shuffled backwards, trying to sound confident but failing miserably.

Yes, this version of Barry had had centuries to plan out her murder, and here she was, vulnerable in a flimsy pajama dress, with no idea where she was nor how to contact her loved ones.

Unexpectedly, Savitar stopped in his tracks, looking away from her with a sigh.

“You know, maybe living so long with my memories made me overestimate everyone’s intelligence,” he drawled with a shrug before looking back at her.

Iris was mildly horrified at the instinctive thrill her body experienced from having such an intense gaze from him on her.

But the investigative part of her told her to _focus_ _and pay attention_ to what the speedster from the infinite time loop had just said.

“We don’t have the advantage of knowing the future,” she argued cautiously, crossing her arms over - rather than under - her breasts.

“I’ve given you plenty of cues,” Savitar claimed with a slight lift of his lips.

Okay, that was actually true. Iris remembered thinking that when Barry had revealed Savitar’s identity. _I am the future Flash_ had made sense then.

What else had he said that time he had freaked out everyone by throwing intimate knowledge about members of the team?

 _One shall betray you_. That had been Caitlin, who had turned to Savitar’s side when she became Killer Frost.

 _One shall fall_. Wally. He had fallen into Savitar’s trap, and got stuck into the Speed Force.

Oh, Wally! The last time Iris had seen her baby brother, he’d been severely hurt. She hoped that he had already healed.

 _One shall suffer a fate far worse than death_. Was that a riddle about her? No, that couldn’t be. Savitar had been upfront about his intention to kill her.

He had even hinted at that when he’d addressed her directly through Julian’s mouth.

_To be a god, you just have to make people believe you are._

_No one believes in you._

_You should, Iris. I hold the power of life and death over all of you._

Yeah, Iris had lived in fear of that power for months, even considered taking her own life to regain some sort of agency.

But she’d loved her family too much, loved her career too much, and loved Barry too much to abandon him before he could figure out a way to ‘fix’ the changes he’d brought about by creating Flashpoint.

So why was Iris still alive, when Savitar had clearly had his opportunity to kill her? He’d been obsessed with it, just as he’d been obsessed with becoming a god. Without her death Savitar would disappear, the paradox unfulfilled.

Iris stared at Barry’s time remnant, who was observing her with curiosity now, definitely guessing that she was mulling over the clues he’d given him. The clues he’d given her.

 _You should, Iris. I hold the power of life and death over all of you_.

Life and death.

Life and…

Iris gasped in disbelief, then hurriedly lifted her nightgown to look at the scar of her stab wound.

There was none.

That was impossible. She wasn’t a speedster like Barry, such a deep wound should’ve left a clear mark. It also should still hurt, as it had only been two weeks since the incident.

Instead, it looked like she had miraculously come back to life, unblemished by the fatal wound that had definitely killed her.

As if God had blessed her with another chance to live.

“You wanted to become a god so you could revive me after killing me?” Iris asked for confirmation, disbelief coating her voice even now that she had figured out the truth behind Savitar’s plan.

The truth that Barry Allen, regardless of the timeline, loved her more than anything…

_I love you more than anything, that part’s never changed, it never will._

...and would never leave her to die, even if fate forced him to kill her himself.

Suddenly Iris’ vision was blurry, and she blinked away the watery veil of her tears just in time to see Savitar nodding in confirmation.

“I don’t… I - don’t understand,” she stuttered between sobs, taking a step forward, then another one backward.

Savitar was fidgeting, remaining in his spot but clearly keen on getting closer to comfort her.

Comfort her? He’d killed her!

“Why would you...hurt - me in the - in the first place?” Iris asked as tears flooded her cheeks, her heart breaking at the thought of Barry’s pain.

Not just her Barry, who had lived in fear for her for months, then witnessed her death with his own eyes, felt her take her last breath in his arms as he'd envisioned so many times...  
And this Barry, who remembered every memory present Barry had, and had stabbed her anyway.

“If you’re Barry - Barry’s time remnant,” the journalist reasoned out loud, and her next thought quieted her sobs, swift realization slotting in her mind as resentment settled heavily in her chest.

“If you’re a time remnant, why didn’t you just let the paradox catch up to you?” she questioned steadily as she wiped her tears furiously with the back of a fisted hand. “You weren’t even supposed to exist in this timeline, so what right did you have, to take my life so you could stay here? You don’t bel…”

Iris cut herself, even slapping her left hand on her mouth to keep the end of the sentence locked away. The metal of her ring bit sharply into her upper lip, but that physical discomfort was insignificant next to her heartache at seeing the stricken look on Savitar’s face - Barry’s face.

Time remnants were not disposable. They were real people with real desires to live. Iris had witnessed Barry’s first time remnant burn into oblivion to save the multiverse, and that image had plagued her sleep for days.

  
So how could she imply that this Barry should just have died so she could live? _She’d_ give her life for Barry in a heartbeat.

“I didn’t mean that,” she quickly amended, “it was anger talking, I’d never…”

“I know,” Savitar said, his head moving in shallow nods repeatedly before he sighed and walked over a loveseat across windows with drawn curtains, letting his long legs collapse to sit on it.

Iris ran a hand over her hair - it was curly and slightly tangled, because of course no version of Barry could handle a flat iron - and sighed in turn, grateful despite herself that Savitar indeed seemed to know her very well.

“Now what?” she asked solemnly, angling herself towards her kidnapper.

Because he still had taken her away from Barry.

_Everything you took from me, I want it back._

Whichever version of Barry that had first created the time remnant that eventually became Savitar - the whole time loop thing confused Iris - had robbed him of his own life, of his own friends and family. But his Iris had already been dead, right? So he had no right to keep her with him.

“Now we both live with the consequences of my actions,” Savitar answered just as solemnly, meeting her brown eyes with an apologetic spark in his green ones.

What?

“What do you mean?” Iris inquired with a frown, her nerves starting to fray again.

Lord, could she get a break? The past months had been hell, and even now that her tormentor was done toying with her life, she still had more to worry about?

She didn’t see Savitar moving, but her hair and nightgown moved, and his position suddenly changed from sitting far into the loveseat with his hands in his lap, to him sitting at the edge of the seat with his hands clasped together, elbows on his knees.

He also was now illuminated by the light of either dawn or dusk, the soft rays of a red sun highlighting Barry’s - Savitar’s - brown hair.

Understanding that her killer turned savior wanted her to look outside, Iris stepped carefully toward the ceiling-high sliding doors, beyond which stood a gorgeous balcony.

But it wasn’t the fancy lounging chairs and tables or the odd-looking grill that grabbed the journalist’s attention.

No, it was the downtown skyline that floored her.

The illuminated buildings were all shaped as rectangular tubes or some similar structures, through which elevated railways and platforms ran. Rows of skyways ran parallel to the tracks on the outside of the buildings.

As she blinked her wide eyes, Iris saw a wingless plane passing over the building of the suite she was standing in, a trail of fluffy vapor tracing the purple sky.

Well, no wonder this whole place was unfamiliar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback (reaction, favorite quote, questions, exclamations, emojis/smileys, etc.) appreciated!
> 
> Savitar and/or Barry POVs next :)


	3. Another Earth—Savitar/Barry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Savitar tells Iris how he brought her back.
> 
> Barry gets stuck on Earth 51, sans powers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for the kudos and comments! Hope you like this chapter too.
> 
> Remember that 'Savitar is his own warning' tag? Click on 'more notes' for detailed warnings.

_“This is fifty shades of wrong,” Cisco said from the other side of the room, sitting by the bed where Caitlin was still unconscious._

_Savitar had injected Killer Frost with the cure as soon as she stepped away from the glovebox, successfully setting the perfect temperature for the cryogenic chamber._

_“What you’re doing is illegal, unethical, unnatural,” the genius mouthed off, and Savitar couldn’t help but let out a short laugh._

_“Yet you’re helping me do it,” he reminded the engineer with a smile._

_A genuine smile. He could feel elation running through his veins, joy bubbling just under his skin. All from the sight in front of him._

_Even in death, Iris looked beautiful. There was no external signs of decomposition on her petite frame, as she had been kept in the cold for most of the past three days, only taken out of the morgue for a few hours at the mortician before the funerals. That’s when Savitar had swapped her with a wax statue of the same weight. The doll wouldn’t fool anybody who got a close look, but Savitar hadn’t been worried that anyone would._

_The West family kept caskets closed at funerals, a tradition Barry learned from Iris growing up. She always complained about being forced to grieve an elderly relative she had never met in person, whose face she only knew from a picture of the deceased taken when they were so much younger._

_With the exception of Francine, Iris was the only female in the West family to die young. When Savitar had checked the cemetery, he hadn’t been surprised to see over a hundred people attending the burial. Not only was most of her extended family present, but Iris’ friends, colleagues and acquaintances also showed up to say goodbye._

_Iris Ann West had been loved by all who knew her, though none of them deserved her._

_Not even Savitar. Definitely not him._

_He didn’t care._

_“It looks like she’s asleep,” Cisco unexpectedly commented._

_Savitar was surprised to see the engineer finally getting a look at the body of his friend._

_He’d refused to be involved in the cryogenization of Iris’ corpse beyond calibrating the ‘cold machine’ as he called the modified glovebox. Killer Frost had been the one helping Savitar strap her dead body to the vertical bed of the chamber._

_It was true, Iris looked very much like when she slept: peaceful, young, regal. Her foundation was the wrong undertone, and her straightened hair lacked volume, but she still looked gorgeous._

_“You know that I’ll tell Barry about this, right?” the Cisco warned him. “If you manage to resurrect her…”_

_“I’ll resurrect her,” the time remnant corrected, “and don’t worry about anything beyond making the inter-dimensional quantum phaser. I’ll take care of the rest.”_

_“You’re not going to kill us,” Cisco said, though it sounded like a question._

_Savitar refrained from telling this version of his friend that killing the love of his life had been more than enough blood on his hands. As satisfying as leaving Barry alone in the world would be, he didn’t have time to spare for a killing spree._

_“Let’s get back to work,” he told the engineer as he repressed the urge to touch the glass and metal barrier separating him from Iris._

  
**************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

“What Earth is this?” Iris asked him when she finally turned around, curiosity replacing shock in her wide eyes.

It felt so good to have her not only look at him again, but look at him without fear, hatred, or disgust.

“You must be hungry,” he said as he stood from the armchair at regular speed before zipping through the loft to get a steaming mug of homemade Americano. “And probably about to get withdrawal symptoms from lack of caffeine. Here,” he added when he returned to the master bedroom.

Iris blinked in surprise at his offering, and started extending a hand at the mug when a frown split her face.

“You can’t keep me here forever,” she said, frustration coloring her voice. “And you can’t keep avoiding my questions. You know better than that.”

He did, and he almost regretted showing her that she had nothing to fear from him. She’d been more cooperative on Earth-1 when she only saw him as her future killer.

“At least tell me how you brought me back,” she requested as she smoothly extended both arms to grab the coffee mug. “In as many lay terms as possible, obviously.”

Savitar didn’t miss how she avoided skin contact with him, but indulged all the same in the sight of her appreciating the delicious smell of her favorite drink.

He definitely heard the tiny moan of bliss she immediately suppressed after her first sip, and didn’t hide his own smirk.

That coffee was expensive, the best he could find as he rushed to find a suitable place to settle on Earth 572. He was proud that his last minute purchase still satisfied her tastes.

He was beyond glad that she was standing there, doing something as mundane as drinking coffee, when for two weeks she had been immobile, either strapped up in the cryogenic chamber, or lying down on a lab bed before he could get her the comfortable king bed she had woken up on.

The soft light of the rising sun added to her natural glow, added to the light he’d been afraid would never return to her body.

“Well?” Iris prompted him, and he felt himself blush when she stepped sideways to get out of the sunlight, which shadowed her curves through the thin satin of the nightgown.

“You’d want to change, I’m sure,” he tried to distract her after clearing his throat.

“You’ve seen more than that, don’t change subjects,” she countered as she walked to the loveseat. “This place is very nice,” she added after settling against the back of the deep armchair, her feet dangling a few inches from the floor.

“Thanks,” he replied, grateful that she didn't seem bent on being cold and detached with him.

“About you resurrecting me…” she prompted again.

Savitar sighed, shaking his head as he lowered himself on the bed he had yet to sleep on.

“It’s complicated,” he said quietly, though he knew right away that it was the wrong thing to say.

Indeed, her beautiful eyes darkened in indignation when she swallowed the sip she had just taken.

“Try again, Bartholomew, and don’t you say that’s not your name,” she chided him harshly.

“I’m not Barry Allen,” he talked back just as sternly, glaring at her.

That was the one thing he would never allow her to forget. He would give her everything she wanted within the confines of this Earth, but he would never let her treat him like a mere substitution of her unworthy fiancé.

Iris held his gaze for a moment, but quickly turned away.

“I can’t,” she whispered with a shake of her head. “Without your scars, all I can see is Barry.”

A mild panic rose in Savitar’s chest.

He’d been so obsessed with his plan to resurrect Iris that he had not thought very far ahead about being with her again.

Yes, he’d counted on his improved appearance to make things easier for her to see him in a better light, but he’d thought that being her enemy for months would have helped her think of him as more than Barry Allen’s time remnant.

“I could get the scars again,” he told Iris as he looked at his feet, though he wondered if it was even possible.

He was basically invincible now. Unless he got hit by a nuke, any physical wound would heal very quickly.

“What? No!” she objected vehemently, scooting to the edge of the loveseat. “I _know_ that you’re not my Barry, okay? No need to hurt yourself. Just…”

He looked up to gaze at her eyes, softened by the pity he knew she felt for him.

“If you tell me more about yourself, maybe...” she started.

She didn’t know how deep of an offense her words were - that was her catch line to get people to divulge info, he'd heard it before - so Savitar tried to calm down before he could yell at her, but he barely managed to keep his voice level.

“Has the info you've gathered about me the past few months not been enough?” he interrupted her, speeding to kneel at her feet, catching her mug when she startled at his sudden movement before setting it on the floor.

“You scared me! Don’t do that!” she reprimanded fretfully, her accelerated heartbeat visible at her neck.

“I’m nothing like _him_ ,” he hissed, lifting off the floor to bring a knee on the seat, caging her tiny frame with his arms on either side of her body, bringing his face so close to hers that he could smell the coffee on her breath.

“You don’t know half of the things that I’ve done to get you back,” he told her as he gazed at her frightened eyes. “Things that _his_ weak mind would never imagine. He couldn’t even kill Grodd to change the future, and this…”

He took her left hand, made her look at Eleanor Allen’s ring.

“ _This_ was the best he could think of to change a timeline when you died anyway. He spent months coddling you with fake optimism, false hope for a future together, when he knew from traveling to the future that you wouldn’t be there -”

“It’s not true,” Iris defended vehemently, “the first time maybe, but he proposed again out of love, not fear…”

“How could he not be scared?” Savitar challenged as he dropped her hand to run the back of his knuckles along her jaw. “Nothing he was doing was working, he had to depend on a failing graduate student to make a weapon to defeat a stronger, faster, better version of him…”

“You’re _not_ better than him,” Iris objected as she gripped his wrist, her eyes sharpening on him. “Barry is good, he’s done so much good for people, before and after getting his speed, and he never lost himself to darkness, always did what was...”

“Because he still had you," he cut her off. "You were the only light he had left, his guide in that bleak world of his, the one shining star in a pitch black sky of grief and anger -”

He had to take a deep breath to squash down memories of despair, to remain grounded in this timeline when he had succeeded in saving the love of his life.

Only then did he realize that her breaths were also shallow, and he rubbed his thumb against her cheekbone as he regulated his own intake of oxygen.

She barely relaxed, and he knew that she couldn't with him so close to her, so he removed his hand from her face.

She opened her mouth, maybe to say ‘thank you’ or 'it's okay' but no words came out of the pretty lips he was dying to kiss.

“I gave him clues,” he reminded her softly as he pulled back from her, climbing off the armchair and putting much needed distance between them.

“I basically told him how to save you. I wasn’t the enemy, fate was. A mere human couldn’t break an infinite time loop…”

“But a god could,” Iris completed the sentence, a hint of awe in her voice. “How?”

“The Speed Force,” he finally told her. “When I was trapped in it I was more powerful than ever, even though I was confined. Speedsters generate some speed force when they move, that’s what allows us to create our lightning or to open time portals. But a speedster alone can’t generate enough speed force to challenge a whole timeline the way I needed to.”

“Which was?” Iris questioned as she wiped the tears that had fallen on her cheeks.

He gave her the time to settle at the edge of the loveseat, and noted with delight the telling fidget of Iris West, reporter extraordinaire, fishing for the truth.

He knew that she was fighting the compulsion to find something to write down everything he said so that she could go back to it later, review the info to make sure she could explain it herself if anyone asked about it.

Years of being at STAR Labs hearing Team Flash throw scientific terms and theories around had polished her basic understanding of physics. She could keep up as long as he didn’t get into too much detail.

“I had to generate a time field around you and you only,” he explained as he waved a hand at her perfect body. “Reverse time only from the perspective of your cells.”

“You can do that?” she asked rhetorically, poorly hidden fear flashing in her eyes.

Cisco and Caitlin’s reactions had been less subtle. He’d used his new power on them too, erasing from their memories hours upon hours of the nine days they’d spent at his lab. That had been much easier to do than bringing Iris back because he’d focused exclusively on their brain cells.

He could’ve made them forget everything, but he hadn’t wished to erase the romance that had budded between them. He considered it a thank you gift.

Or rather, a repaid debt. He couldn’t have brought back Iris without their help.

“It’s a taxing endeavor, but yes I can do it,” he admitted with a shrug. “I don’t plan on doing it often. The amount of food I required to recuperate was outrageous, even for a speedster.”

They both chuckled at his attempt at levity.

“So you didn’t so much bring me back to life than reverse my death,” Iris stated slowly, unsure of herself.

“To you your death was reversed,” he confirmed with a nod. “But to the rest of the universe, you came out of nowhere. You’re a new variable in this timeline, yet not at all. You’re the anomaly that broke the time loop, only the time loop doesn’t realize it’s become a line.”

“Wow, that’s...A lot to process” Iris confessed as she ducked her head, tucking a wayward curl behind her ear.

Savitar belatedly realized that he had been gazing at her adoringly, the way he automatically did whenever he had the luxury to just enjoy her presence.

“Breakfast in half an hour?” He suggested in an attempt to reduce the growing tension in the room.

“Make it an hour, I need to fix this,” she replied as she held a section of her curly hair.

* * *

“You know, you shouldn’t be doing this,” Cisco said as a greeting when Barry reappeared in the breach room of STAR Labs.

Barry had finally taken that paid vacation to be able to scout the multiverse for signs of Savitar whenever he wasn’t contributing to improving Harry’s sonar.

“Not only is it impossible for you to check all earths because there is an infinite number of them, but it’s also dangerous because many of these worlds have laws against inter-dimensional travel,” the engineer pointed out.

“Do you want to stop breaching me?” Barry asked as he walked toward his friend.

He could go to other earths on his own, though he had yet to work out how to land on the intended world. He at least could get back to earth 1 without problems.

“Dude, this is isn’t about me,” Cisco argued, “this is about you risking too much by going on a wild goose chase. For all we know Savitar is still on this earth, hiding in some remote town, undetectable because he’s not using his powers at all.”

Barry had trouble imagining any speedster refraining from using their powers at all, least of all Savitar. Sometimes going fast was a reflex, and it actually took proper concentration to go at regular speed.

“Ten more earths and we’ll call it a quit,” he requested.

“For today or for good?” Cisco questioned, his frown visible despite his goggles.

“Yes,” Barry replied ambiguously as he repositioned himself to jump into a new breach, vaguely registering his friend’s sigh.

“Alright, Earth 51. As usual, your suit timer will start as soon as you get there. Thirty minutes. Be safe.”

“I will, thank you Cisco,” Barry recited mindlessly as he hopped into the breach.

Something felt wrong the second he touched down on Earth 51.

Maybe it was the weather. Flurries of rain made the air more humid than on the earth he just left.

Also, the mirror location of STAR Labs happened to be an abandoned facility surrounded by tall grass. Barry could see the gate of the property ahead, and a narrow road leading away from it into the city proper.

Without Wally to check the other half of the planet, He’d need half of those thirty minutes to go around the planet. There was no time to waste wondering if there was a Harrison Wells on this earth.

After taking a centering breath, the speedster launched himself into a run. His feet carried him to the gate at his fastest speed.

His fastest human speed, which was 29 kilometers per hour.

“What?” he whispered to himself when he stopped, breathing hard from the sprint.

He looked down at his hands, stupidly expecting to see meta-cuffs around his wrists. Nothing. He checked the tachyon prototype he planned on using on Savitar. It was off.

Maybe there was a power-dampening force field around the facility.

But his powers were still gone when he reached the road. He’d already wasted five minutes of his time on this world.

The good news was that, if Savitar had come to this earth, chances were that he was stuck on the planet. Also, without his powers, he was an ordinary man just like Barry. He had no physical advantage over him.

Barry went back into the facility, deciding to wait for Cisco to reopen the breach. Barry would go home then return with a taser gun, and maybe a few knives. He wouldn’t kill Savitar, but hurting him a little would satisfy him.

The shrill of a siren resonated in the distance, and Barry felt panic wash over him like a bucket of ice water.

Forcing himself to calm down even as the sirens got closer to the building instead of further along the road, he jogged towards the window closest to his breach point. It fortunately seemed like the glass was one way, hiding him from the eyes outside.

Four hovering crafts - were they using air propellers or magnets? - stopped at the gate, only one of them touching the ground as what Barry assumed were law enforcers came out of the vehicle.

The enforcers who approached the building looked more like a swat team than the police, clad in tactical uniforms and carrying long-range weapons - not firearms from what he could see. Tasers? Stun guns?

Barry really shouldn’t have been surprised to see Eddie Thawne’s doppelganger taking point, but he gasped in shock all the same.

Even with a helmet on, Barry could spot the face of Iris’ late fiancé from this distance, and kept track of him among the dozen or so officers who were spreading around the building. Two unarmed individuals kept close to the blond officer, one of them talking into his wrist watch while the other was holding a tablet in front of her, moving it slowly left to right as if scanning the building,

Not as if, she _was_ scanning the building, and she stopped the tablet exactly in front of Barry’s location.

He was in big trouble.

The tech showed her screen to Earth 51 Eddie, nodding vigorously as he asked her a question.

Eddie’s doppelganger brought down his weapon, unstrapped a radio from his belt, put it on the floor ahead of him and tapped the front pocket of his vest.

“This is the Central City Police, Metahuman unit, group identification oh-one-three," his voice came out loudly, what Barry had assumed to be a radio happening to be a loudspeaker.

"You’re in direct violation of regulations number eight: trespassing on a former metahuman stronghold, and number thirty dash C: standing within a quarter mile radius of transdimensional residual energy. Come out of the building with slow and steady steps, hands in the air at eye level and palms out, free of any weapons or objects that could be construed as makeshift weapons. You have three hundred seconds to obey the command. If you fail to comply, we will raid the compound and arrest you on additional charges of threatening public safety and disobeying a direct command from a rank 2 law enforcer.”

Barry couldn’t let himself be arrested. His only way out of this planet without his powers was through Cisco’s breach programmed to appear in... thirteen minutes.

If he didn’t show up, Cisco would alert the rest of the team, and whoever volunteered to look for him - most likely Cisco himself and Wally - would be equally stuck on a planet that counted very competent anti-meta law enforcement teams.

_Think, Allen, think!_

He pressed his earpiece twice to turn on his voice recorder as he looked around the room.

“Cisco, don’t come here,” he said frantically into the recording device as he spotted a chain dangling from a beam on the ceiling. “Meta powers don’t work on this planet for some reason, probably a global anti-dark matter forcefield, I’m not sure. They have anti-meta police units, good ones, don’t try _anything_ man.”

He paused the recording to remove his suit, checking the timer - eleven minutes left until the breach, three until the police raided the place - and timing the life-vest feature to activate two seconds after the breach appeared.

Ignoring the vulnerable feeling he was getting from being in his underwear, Barry pushed a desk underneath the beam, climbed onto it and grabbed the chain.

He plastered his cheek to the scowl of his suit and pressed play again.

“Contact the legends,” he instructed Cisco more carefully, making sure to enunciate his words clearly. “Maybe I’ll find a way to get my powers back, I can return to earth 1 on my own. Oh, and if you can get the quark sphere monitor in working order, check if you can detect more than one version of my DNA signature on this earth. We should use that from now on to track Savitar across the multiverse. End of message.”

Barry turned off the recorder, loosely tied the end of the chain around his suit, then expanded a ridiculous amount of energy throwing the chain back onto the beam so that the suit would be tucked between the beam and the ceiling.

He tugged the bit of chain that he could still reach, trying to place the chest area of his suit at a downward forty-five degree angle. Once the life vest feature activated, the suit would pop out of the chain and land close enough to the inter-dimensional portal that it would get sucked into it.

But that plan would only work if the police didn’t find his suit, and they would undoubtedly look for it if he went out in boxers.

Forty five six seconds left. He ran around the building, going to the back where he hadn’t stepped foot yet.

He jammed open a custodial closet just as he heard the sound of heavy footsteps coming from all directions.

He would’ve had time to button up the janitor jumpsuit if the dust all around him hadn’t made him sneeze like crazy.

As it was, he seemed to shock a pair of female officers with his uncovered chest.

“Fuck me,” one of them said breathily, earning a reprimanding tap against her helmet from the other.

Barry was positive that it was the same tech who had detected him with a scanner.

“Suspect found by the eastern entrance,” the other officer - an armed one - reported in her pocket radio. “Second door from Exit...2-A. Preliminary identification: outlaw Bartholomew Henry Allen.”

Oh, it wasn’t his chest that had made the other woman curse.

Of course this had to be the earth where his doppleganger was a wanted man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning in this chapter for:
> 
> Mentions of death and funerals  
> Savitar being a good ol' body snatcher  
> Savitar's obsession for Iris and her body  
> Savitar briefly harassing Iris
> 
> Feedback appreciated! Comments have definitely made me update this fic faster than expected.


	4. Another Name—Barry/Iris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry is rescued from the Earth 51 police by a stranger whose name sounds familiar.
> 
> Iris escapes Savitar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally got to the core of the story. It would be awesome to get feedback on this chapter!

“I told you all that he wasn’t dead, you didn’t believe me,” Detective Pat Spivot called out from her spot by the doors at the back of the transport van.

Barry tried not to stare at her. It was overwhelming enough to have Eddie’s doppelgänger in front of him; having Earth 51’s version of his ex-girlfriend look at him with disdain was pushing his limits.

“If you hadn’t lost your so-called conclusive evidence, maybe you would’ve been credited for this arrest, Spivot,” Captain Eddie Thawne commented as he checked his wristwatch for the tenth time in just as many minutes.

Apparently on Earth 51 Captains were 'Rank 2' officers and went out on the field. Maybe it was an exception for the metahuman unit. Or maybe the exception was made because Earth 51 Barry Allen was such a big shot.

“Twain _stole_ it, you know it,” Patty's doppelgänger objected grudgingly.

That infamous Twain, again. The name rang a bell. Where had Barry heard that name before?

It didn’t matter, he wasn’t the right Barry Allen, but he certainly couldn’t convince them of his innocence.

The mouthy tech —Sobel—had confirmed his identity with an impressively fast DNA analysis from a cotton swab before Patty's doppelgänger had arrived with the transportation van. A normal van with tires, as they were taking an old road with restricted access.

From what Barry had gathered, his Earth 51 counterpart had also been a speedster, which had made him the most elusive burglar on Earth. For years Allen —going under the alias of The Chemist— had led a whole group of metahuman thieves, Team Flash, until the military had figured out a way to globalize the meta dampening force field via satellite transmission.

Apparently The Chemist was good enough of a thief not to get caught despite lacking his speed. Two of his close associates, a Ramon (Cisco!) and a Twain, a.k.a Quantum and ‘N’, had been the only members of his team to escape the law even with the anti-metahuman international police on their heels.

Until recently. Quantum had been shot dead a few days ago after attempting to artificially open a breach with stolen tech from Mercury Labs.

This was why a Rank 2 officer like Captain Thawne had been among the first responders about a trespass on one of the abandoned bases of operations of Team Flash.

“We’ll get Twain,” Eddie’s doppelgänger promised before pointing his chin at Barry. “She probably thought that her solo heist at Tannhauser Labs would keep us thinking that Allen was dead and —”

The van suddenly veered off the road, throwing everyone off except Barry who was tightly strapped to a special seat. That didn’t prevent him from feeling the full effects of gravity and all other forces involved as the van tumble around before landing on its side in a terrible crash.

Ouch. Without his powers, he would bruise terribly after this.

It was a good thing that his ears were ringing from the crash, because the van doors exploded outwards in a way he was certain had required a decent amount of explosives.

From his peripheral vision, Barry saw Captain Thawne trying to reach his stunner gun from his prone position on the floor, but the high heel of a black leather boot crushed his hand.

Barry heard his scream just fine, and groaned in sympathy, and also in lamentation - he now had more material for nightmares about Eddie.

“Stay down, Captain Pretty Boy, that’s the only way I like you,” the modified voice belonging to the owner of the boots ordered.

It took a full minute for Barry’s brain to catch up to what was happening, but the rest of his body cooperated with the attacker, his arms wrapping around the waist of the woman and his feet stepping over unconscious officers, then shuffling over uneven ground and asphalt.

It was only when he was gently propped against the door of a truck that his eyes finally focused on the person who was clearly abducting him, clad in black volcanic teflon from neck to shin, gloves matching her boots and a helmet hiding her entire head.

“Please tell me you’re this Twain they’ve been talking about,” Barry blurted out as he got even dizzier than before, and promptly passed out.

It seemed he’d slept for days, because from a sleep blissfully free of nightmares without any acute pain in his body.

“Don’t sit up too fast, you have a mild concussion,” the same robotic voice he’d heard before collapsing told him a second before he thought of doing just that.

Barry gingerly turned his head towards the direction of the voice, and appraised the stranger’s outfit once again.

Cisco had definitely dressed her, what with the bold golden N letter curving at the front of her black helmet and suit. If he squinted, Barry could see that the buckle of her tactical belt was also shaped into the letter.

Although it was easy to tell that she was a woman, her curves didn’t show very much through her suit. Her boots gave a skewed estimation of her real height. It didn’t help Barry to get a good approximate that she was leaning against a wall of the sterile room instead of standing straight.

Twain. Just where had he heard that name before? Definitely not at CCPD. Maybe in Starling City?

“You’re from another earth,” she stated flatly, seemingly unbothered by his long stare.

“Gave myself away I guess,” Barry said with a shrug. “What about your Barry?”

“Three bullets through the chest a month ago,” the criminal reported evenly.

Barry felt a pang of sorrow and empathy squeeze his chest. He knew too well how it felt to watch family die. He also knew not to utter any empty words of sympathy.

He slowly lifted his torso off the narrow bed, propping himself on his elbows before carefully sitting against the railed headboard. He groaned as the bars dug into his back.

So, not completely healed yet. Maybe he’d only slept for a day.

“I only gave you one dose of painkillers, didn’t want to have you sleep through the day,” Twain informed him.

“Fine by me, I don’t want to waste any extra time on this earth,” the stranded speedster grunted before he blinked upon realizing a shocking fact.

He was upset. Like, very annoyed at the turn of events. And he’d been sad at the news of his doppelgänger’s death.

He was _feeling emotions_. On the wrong earth and in front of a stranger, but there he was.

“Sorry,” he immediately apologized to the person who'd saved him from being locked up in some obscure cell.

“And thank you,” he added. “It would’ve been hard figuring out how to go back home from Iron Heights.”

He obviously couldn’t see the criminal’s eyes, but she seemed to be studying him as she remained silent for a minute.

“You’re different,” she said quietly.

“From your Barry Allen? Yeah, I caught that,” he scoffed. “On my earth I’m actually the one stopping metahumans with...”

“You’re not a speedster on your earth?” N cut him off, sounding surprised even through the voice modifier.

“I am, but I help the police stop the ones who use their powers to hurt others, the criminals only,” Barry amended.

“The police on your earth work with metas?” she questioned, even more surprised.

“I take it that here all metas are considered hostile,” he guessed with a frown. “That’s a lot of people to hunt down,” he reflected out loud.

“There are fewer metas now than there originally were in Central City. A bitter reminder that Team Flash failed to improve the public opinion of metas,” Twain recounted as she pushed off the wall and took a few steps closer.

“At first we wanted to prove to Central City and the rest of the world that not all of us were dangerous. We took care of the bad ones for a start, and when that wasn’t enough to sway the Mayor, Cisco showed CCPD how to manufacture meta-cuffs…”

She was using the 'we' pronoun a lot. Clearly she was close to both Barry and Cisco on this earth, but he still couldn't pinpoint her last name. Twain. Maybe she was a former STAR Labs employee he'd never met on his earth?

“But when Dr. Wells got pressured to stop advocating for metas, everything went wayward,” N further explained. “Me and Barry kept our jobs because we’d been hiding our identities all along, but all the STAR Labs employees who were metas got fired, including Ronnie and Cisco."

"Even Caitlin, who had experimented on herself to figure out a metahuman cure, had to settle with working for her mother since no one else would ever hire her. Barry distributed the cure to everyone he could reach in the whole state: federal employees, celebrities, politicians, pro-metas law enforcers, college students, and of course people who worked in the medical and biotech fields. That saved a lot of people’s careers and jobs when a DNA analysis report became mandatory for resumes.”

Barry blinked slowly as he processed the tsunami of information. 

Wow, that was insane. And very different from the picture Earth 51 Eddie and Patty had painted of this earth’s Barry Allen. The only good news in that bleak story was that the Caitlin Snow of this world had been spared the same tragic end as Cisco. He didn’t dare ask about Ronnie, though.

He was still intrigued by Twain, whose full name was now at the tip of his tongue. He knew her somehow. From where, though? 

“That cure made a difference,” Twain asserted. “Cisco vibed a timeline in which Barry hadn’t distributed the cure, and the national guard had rounded us all in concentration camps, even the ones who weren’t aware of being metas but still had detectable dark matter in their DNA. Barry accidentally travelled to another earth where such injustice was a reality all over the world.”

Barry hoped that, if he had to visit another earth similar to his again, it would be one where everyone was happy. He hated abandoning people to their tragic fate when he had the power to help them.

“It had been hard for him to return without lifting a finger to help there,” N unsurprisingly informed him, “but we had a rule about never interfering with other worlds and timelines. We’d sworn on it when Barry founded Team Flash. Cisco broke the rule last week, and he almost got killed for it."

“Almost?” Barry repeated, pleasantly surprised. “You mean that he’s alive?”

“Caitlin would kill him before letting him die,” the thief joked, her short laugh sounding oddly pleasant even through the voice modifier. “It was easy to fool the cops. Unless Spivot or Thawne is in charge of the investigation, it’s easy to manipulate the evidence and hear-say that the CCPD relies on to build cases on us.”

Maybe she was Lisa Snart’s doppelgänger? Names didn’t always match across the universes.

But that didn’t explain why the name Twain had started a low, steady thrum through Barry’s well rested if slightly bruised body.

“Maybe we should’ve broken the rule when Barry’s identity was found out,” Twain said more seriously with a slow shake of her covered head. “Maybe we should’ve found a better earth and taken refuge there.”

“Metahumans are stigmatized or downright feared in all the worlds I’ve been to where they exist, including mine.” Barry informed her as he ran a hand over his face. “My team and I have done world crossovers and time travels multiple times, and believe me, doing so has put us in danger and threatened our cohesion more than once. Joe claims that he’s got all his greys from worrying about the Team.”

“Joe?” Twain repeated, her already odd voice breaking on the syllable.

Barry was about to say that Joe stood for Joseph, as in Joseph West… And that’s when he remembered.

“Nessir Twain,” he blurted out the full name of the thief.

Two last names put together to sound masculine and intimidating. A made up name that he’d forgotten from his MPRPG era in high school.

Coincidentally, it was an anagram for another name, which Barry had figured it out quite easily back then.

“Iris?” he whispered as his vision blurred, tears filling his eyes.

As if her name was a command to reveal the truth, the black-clad thief slowly removed her helmet.

She wasn’t _his_ Iris, Barry knew that. He’d gone out of his way to avoid the Iris Wests of the multiverse in his hunt for Savitar. To avoid being distracted by a tangible vision of what he had lost.

That smooth brown skin, the long and voluminous jet black hair, those almond-shaped eyes Barry's dreams couldn’t perfectly recreate...Even through the blur of his tears he was blinded by her grace.

“Hi Barry,” Earth 51 Iris Ann West said with a sad smile, saline tracks on her own cheeks.

* * *

As she stuffed clothes in a messenger bag, Iris congratulated herself for fooling Savitar into thinking that she would cooperate with him.

It’s not like it had been hard for her not to flinch at his touch or shout at him when he dared call himself better than Barry. It was only when Savitar had been close enough for Iris to see the glint of madness in his eyes that she had tensed in fear.

But as Savitar himself had insisted, he was not Barry Allen, and Iris totally agreed.

Iris would be a liar if she claimed that the Barry she knew and loved could never go to extremes to save her life. He had broken the law for her sake, working willingly with Snart. He had entertained the idea of killing Grodd just to create a change in the timeline that could save her. In the end he hadn’t followed through that plan, but it had been in his desperate mind. So on that front, he and Savitar were similar.

_But it’s in there, you know, that’s in me - that power, that pain, that’s where Savitar comes from: from loss...From losing you._

So yeah, now that she knew why he had killed her, Iris saw that Savitar was simply a broken Barry. But he wasn’t _her_ Barry _._

Her Barry would have changed his mind about giving her coffee, realizing that it might prevent her from calming down after learning that she had died and come back to life and was on a different earth all in the span of ten minutes.

Her Barry would’ve excitedly given her a tour of this amazing penthouse, then sat with her in the luxurious bathroom while she took a shower and straightened her hair, entertaining her with trivia on the differences between this earth and theirs.

Her Barry would’ve asked her if she was okay half a dozen times before leaving her alone to make breakfast.

But Savitar was a selfish man - oh right, actually, a selfish _god_ \- whose only interest was to have Iris for himself, partly to take her away from Barry.

The other part was that he loved her to a very disturbing extreme, and Iris Ann West was not in the business of playing house with creeps. She knew it was only a question of time before Savitar tried to touch more than her face or hands. He certainly hadn’t resurrected her to look at her from a distance.

To her shame, Iris didn’t think that she could trust herself around Savitar either. It was easy to reject him now that her resentment for what he'd done to her and her friends was still fresh. 

But what about in a week, or in a month, or in a year, when she was bound to become another case of Stockholm syndrome? Her captor had the face of her future husband, for heaven’s sake. Iris couldn’t risk it.

So, after a quick shower, instead of getting on the very necessary task of doing her hair, she tied her curls in a controlled low bun and stuffed the flat iron and an assortment of brand new brushes and combs in the bag along with her other necessities. Then she slipped into yoga pants, an insulated sports jacket over the sturdiest sports bra she’d even worn, as well as training shoes.

She had to give credits to Savitar for perfectly guessing her numbers in the weird sizing system they had on this earth. Knowing his obsession for her now, she bet that he could list all her body measurements in both the metric and imperial systems.

The bedroom was unoccupied, and Iris slid the door to the balcony quietly open.

Not a balcony, she realized as she stepped outside, but a freaking rooftop patio. Damn. She had hoped to be able to jump onto the balcony of the neighbors downstairs.

Were they even other residents in this building? For all Iris knew, Savitar owned the whole damn thing.

The journalist scanned her surroundings from the edge of the roof, standing on her tiptoes to get a good view. Good thing it wasn’t a windy morning.

There were other buildings around, but none of them had flat roofs at a jumping distance.

No wonder Savitar hadn’t hesitated to leave her alone. She had nowhere to go.

 _Nuh-uh, West, giving up is not an option_ , she thought with a firm shake of her head.

She inspected the whole perimeter of the patio a second time, and on the northeast side she spotted what looked like a four-way skyway between the building she was in and three lower ones. It was maybe ten floors down, she had to stand on her tiptoes and really crane her neck to see it.

Ten floors. And Iris still had thirty five minutes before Savitar thought to check on her.

She went back to the room, walked to the spacious closet - having to leave this place was paining her, seriously - and all the bedsheets and bed covers she found together before returning to the patio.

“Hey, if I die, he’ll just bring me back,” she tried to joke as she finished tying one end of her makeshift rope to a rain gutter, testing its sturdiness before wrapping the middle of the sheets around her waist, only twice and not too tight.

Iris had taken a climbing class back in college, because she'd wanted to actually earn those health and fitness semester credits. Regular gym class would have been a breeze for her since she'd been a cheerleader in high school.

Of course, the gear she’d used in the climbing class had been appropriate for the activity, and going down had not actually been the focus of the course, but she had significantly built her upper body strength that year, which she had maintained with regular exercise and boxing.

So what if she lost her grip on her improvised rope twice on her descent, or knocked her knee against the side of the building? She made it on the skyway.

As she’d expected, the skyway entrance to Savitar’s building was locked shut. Her abductor wasn’t letting anyone in.

She unwrapped herself from the bedsheets and ever so slowly crawled towards the crossway of the skyway, mindful of the messenger bag.

And she almost gave a heart attack to the first person who spotted her, some corporate employee who whipped his cell phone as he accelerated his stride to one of the exits.

The following people passing by took pictures of her —Savitar didn’t check social media, did he? —and one even tried to communicate with her in sign language until she realized that Iris couldn’t freely move her hands. Iris' ASL was rusty anyway.

Eventually everyone kept going on their way.

Iris stayed as immobile as she could in the center of the glass panel, resting on her hands and knees. Again, good thing the wind was still.

“Ma’am, can you hear me?” A woman in uniform shouted from a window on the easternmost side of the skyway. The building furthest from Savitar's place.

“Yes,” she replied quietly, bracing her core so she could lift an arm to give a thumbs up to the security officer.

“We’re getting a cleaning lift ready for you. Hold on, okay? What’s your name?”

Iris opened her mouth, but stopped from blurting her name, because hello, doppelgänger? There already was another Iris Ann West on this earth.

This city might not be the equivalent of Central City, but she still couldn’t risk being confused with another person.

“Nessir Twain,” she said instead, remembering the time when her and Barry had made up names for their avatars on some role-playing online game Iris had dropped the very same day. She'd used it to make it look like she was a boy behind the female avatar. Barry had eventually figured out that the odd combo of last names was an anagram of her full name.

Hopefully that wasn’t a memory Savitar kept at the forefront of his mind. Barry and her had played many other online games before and after that time, and Iris often named her avatar some version of ‘kanyewestlostsister,’ a fact that Barry still teased her about now and then.

Only when she touched the ground after a mildly jerky decent on the clean lift did Iris realize that her time had been up a long time ago.

Either Savitar wasn’t looking for her yet —allowing her much needed alone time, as Barry would— or he didn’t want to cause a scene by making her disappear in broad daylight with so many eyewitnesses.

She was gently escorted to the security office and gratefully downed two glasses of water.

“Who’s your emergency contact?” the nice security officer asked her in a very professional manner, though Iris could tell that the older woman was wondering if it wasn’t safe to just call a psychiatric center to pick her up.

“I can’t remember the phone number on the top of my head,” Iri lied as she kept her hands in her lap, her gaze fixed on the front entrance to check for Savitar’s arrival.

Sue her, she felt safer _pretending_ that she would see him coming if he figured out where she was.

“Is your identification bracelet in your bag, Miss Twain?” Officer...Williams asked her casually as she pressed keys on her pager.

Iris was about to say that she lost the bracelet when she saw the air shimmer before a familiar reflective blue portal opened in the small office.

Officer Williams seemed to be familiar with breaches too, because she took off from her workplace like a high schooler at the sound of the bell announcing recess.

Iris didn’t have time to find the security officer’s behavior weird, because she was too busy being relieved to know that her friends had come for her.

“Cisco!” she exclaimed as she shot off her chair, just as the breacher steps through the portal.

Her joy was short-lived, because she immediately realized that this was not her earth’s Cisco at all.

His breacher’s outfit was too dark, and the lenses of his goggles were gold instead of blue. Also his hair was much longer, and gathered into a braid.

But the most telling hint that this was not the Cisco Ramon Iris knew was that the breacher took a step back when he saw her reaction, and promptly removed his goggles to gape at her.

“First of all, it’s _Reverb_ to you,” he announced as he pointed his goggles at her, “second of all...You’re happy to see me. Why are you happy to see me, Lieutenant West?”

It was Iris’ turn to gape at him.

 _Lieutenant West_. This earth’s Iris West was a cop.

Oh, she was so going to tell her dad about it.

But for now, she had to grab something in the bag to use as a weapon, because the only reason a cop shouldn’t be happy to see a super-powered individual was that the super-powered individual in question was not a law-abiding citizen.

Just as Iris was about to slip a hand into the back pocket of her messenger back, a tiny shock wave shoved her a few feet away, the bag strap slipping off her shoulder.

“That will be your only warning not to try anything funny,” Cisco’s doppelgänger told her. “Let’s go.”

The breacher stepped towards her and grabbed her wrist, only to promptly freeze as he held her forearm.

It took a second for Iris to recognize the tell tale of Cisco vibing, but she then quickly sent her friend’s doppelgänger sprawling on the floor with a solid jab to his stomach quickly followed by one of her meanest left hooks to the jaw.

“Wait! Ugh—” Reverb called out when Iris was halfway through the door of the office.

She turned back towards the breacher only after brandishing a boar-bristle brush as makeshift weapon.

“I can...Damn it, ow!” Not-Cisco grunted as he sat up on the floor, pushing his goggles into his hair to look her in the eyes. “I can help you get rid of your Allen. Funny that in an infinite number of earths, I’d know two Barry Allens intent on killing two Iris Wests.”

Iris didn’t find it funny.

“Barry Allen on this earth is trying to kill my counterpart?” she asked for confirmation.

“What? No, he got her killed a while ago,” Reverb explained with a casual shrug of his shoulders, “though he didn’t do it himself, so rumors have been going around that she survived. I came to verify them. Oh, and Allen’s dead too, courtesy of yours truly.”

“You killed your Barry Allen,” Iris paraphrased dumbly.

“You say ‘your Barry Allen’ like there was any love between us,” Not-Cisco commented with a frown as he inelegantly climbed to his feet. “So what if he was my unofficial boss? He killed one of my best friends and almost killed the other. He got the Metahuman Unit of the freaking Special Ops on our asses ever since West’s gone MIA. Which is why we need to move now, by the way, before that security lady points them in our direction. Your face is all over social media, it’s only a question of—”

Reverb stopped talking just as Iris heard the sound of multiple engines overhead.

The reporter peered up at the small window in the office, and saw the shadow of an aircraft before startling when a rope appeared in front of her on the other side of the glass panel.

“Come on, let’s go!” Cisco’s doppelgänger insisted as he opened another breach.

“Why should I follow you?” Iris challenged as she grabbed her bag, slinging its strap over her head. “You just said it, those guys are hunting criminal metas. They can protect me.”

“You’ve broken the law forbidding inter-dimensional travel,” Reverb pointed out. “That’s a crime worse than 80% of what I’ve done since going underground, chica. They won’t treat you any better than us, especially once they find out that you’re not their beloved queen of Justice, but an illegal world trespasser.”

“I was brought here against my will!” Iris objected, indignant.

“Good luck proving that,” Reverb commented as he sent a burst of air into his breach to widen it just as it was about to close. “Your Barry will definitely find it ironic that you'd get the capital punishment after running away so he wouldn’t murder you.”

Iris forced herself not to react to the wrong assumption this Cisco had about Savitar. She knew that the vibes were sometimes too cryptic to accurately interpret them, so it wasn't surprising that Reverb didn’t know that Savitar had already killed her and didn’t mean her further harm—at least not physically.

She heard a tap against the window, and saw with wide eyes a SWAT Team-type of officer hanging from the rope, adjusting what looked like an explosive charge on the window.

Just outside the office, the clamor of dozens of footsteps was getting louder by the second.

A small part of her brain was telling Iris to stay in the office and try her luck with the law enforcers of this planet. Maybe they’d send her back to Earth 1.

The rest of her wanted to stick with someone familiar. This Cisco wasn’t her friend, but so far he’d seemed truthful and hadn’t tried to harm her, not too much.

“You have five seconds to decide,” Reverb warned her.

Before he finished saying 'decide', Iris was already one foot into the portal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Iris and Savitar vs Barry and Earth 51 Iris. Which mismatched pair do you prefer?
> 
> Bringing a double Caitlin/Cisco pairing next chapter!


	5. Another Loss—Iris/Barry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Savitar finds Iris, and Barry meets the other surviving members of Team Flash.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Half-way through!

The scene that welcomed Iris when she stepped out of Reverb’s portal made her want to scream.

Savitar was standing, legs shoulder-width apart, arms crossed over his chest, a dark glare fixed on Killer Frost, who was facing him on her knees and bound in chains. 

Oh God, Caitlin was Killer Frost on this earth too?

“Caitlin!” Reverb shouted as he landed right behind Iris, immediately raising his hands towards the speedster. “Get away from her, or I’ll breach you into the headquarters of Special Ops, you unoriginal doppelgänger!”

Savitar leveled an unimpressed stare at the breacher, then let out a sigh as he blinked at Iris.

Clearly, he wasn’t surprised to see her there. How had he found her, when she hadn’t even known that she would follow Cisco’s doppelgänger?

Was seeing the future part of his newly acquired godly powers?

A gust of hair blew across the reporter’s face, and next thing she knew Reverb was kneeling on the other side of the big room, and Savitar was standing closer to Iris, his arms uncrossed.

“Cisco!” Killer Frost screamed, and Iris was shocked to hear Caitlin’s voice, not Killer Frost’s.

“Oh, she talks,” Savitar commented sarcastically.

“Touch him and I’ll freeze this Iris to death too,” the ice metahuman threatened as she struggled against her chains.

The speedster narrowed his eyes at her before turning to Iris.

“I spared your Cisco and Caitlin on Earth 1 because I knew you’d never forgive me for hurting them,” Barry’s time remnant commented as he pointed at the doppelgängers behind his back with a thumb. “But why should I spare these two?”

“They haven’t done anything!” Iris replied immediately, half relieved to learn that Cisco and Caitlin were both safe, half horrified by the implication of Savitar’s words about their doppelgängers.

“He helped you escape,” he commented with a tilt of his head back towards Reverb, “and she’s the one who killed this world’s Iris West,” he added with a nod at the agitated platinum blonde behind him.

Iris’ eyes snapped at Killer Frost, who unapologetically stared back at her—right, that’s what she meant by freezing her _too_ — then Iris glared at Reverb, who had clearly omitted that piece of information.

“An attack ordered by your own doppelgänger,” Iris countered as her gaze returned to Savitar, who had the gall to scoff.

“I would’ve killed him myself if I’d come here before his own associates betrayed him,” he assured as he slowly stepped backward towards Reverb. “I guess I’ll have to make do with the guy who killed him.”

“No!” Iris pleaded as she launched herself at the speedster, grabbing his wrist with her two hands. “Please, I’ll go back with you, don’t hurt them. They’re not even from our world!”

She had to drop her hands because they were too shaky to even hold him properly. 

Savitar wanted her to see him as different from Barry? He’d succeeded. He’d just reminded her, in the scariest way, how unlike Barry he actually was.

Abruptly, Iris felt her feet lightly spasm, but when she looked down she saw that Savitar had taken her back to the penthouse—In the kitchen this time.

As soon as she registered her new location, the mouth-watering smell of Grandma Esther’s lasagna blessed her nose. That seemed to be the cue for her stomach to growl embarrassingly loudly, as if she had time to be hungry in her circumstances.

“You climbed down ten floors using bed sheets as rope,” Savitar summarized in the unnaturally even tone Barry used when he was trying not to sound upset, “to go who knows where on a world you knew _nothing_ about...And to end up following the doppelgänger of Cisco into his base of operations, which happens to be a hub for _criminals_!”

His voice had gradually risen to a panicked pitch, and he rounded on her just as she took a seat on a cushy high chair by the large kitchen island.

“What? Did you expect me to just stay here and play along?” Iris challenged, “pretend like you didn’t take me away from my family and friends and future husband? You know me better than that, Savitar.”

“Did you have to risk your _life_ to make a point?” the speedster asked, his voice breaking on the last few words.

Iris forced herself to remain calm as her chest constricted upon hearing Barry’s voice sound so miserable.

And okay, she shouldn’t have done something so drastic to get away from the only person who knew her on this planet. That little escape had been impulsive and downright dangerous for the life she had just gotten back.

“Sorry,” she whispered, glancing at Savitar, who had taken a seat on the other side of the island, his shoulders caved in, holding his head in his hands.

She heard him sniff, and alright, _now_ she felt truly guilty.

“Is it so...is it— _wrong_ ,” he mumbled in his hands, “for me to want to be happy with you?” he asked before bringing down his hands to stare at her with red-rimmed eyes.

“I tried so many times to get my life back, and every time I made everything worse,” he said tearfully, and this time he couldn’t ask her to call him Savitar because every part of him right now screamed _Barry_.

“You think I wanted to be like this?” he asked her rhetorically as he opened his arms, inviting her to look at him.

Just like this morning, he was dressed all in black, his hair was falling into his eyes, he looked so tired and sad, it broke Iris’ heart despite her resolution not to pity her temporary murderer.

“I had to save you, Iris, I _had to_ ,” he reasoned with a sigh as he tucked his arms against the table, “without you...This is what I am. A broken speedster, with regrets, pain, and anger as only companions.”

Iris considered her next words carefully.

“Why didn’t you… Tell us about your plan?” she asked softly. “If we’d known that you wanted to break the time loop…”

“You would’ve what? ‘Played along’?” he threw back her words at her, but without any venom in his voice. “You think Barry would’ve let me lay a finger on you? That the team would’ve trusted anything I said?”

Not with the Waiverider message, no, no one would’ve trusted him. But he hadn't given them any choice in the matter by introducing himself as their worst enemy.

“And even if you’d let me go through my plan, then what?” Savitar asked her with a self-deprecating smile. “How would we have explained me to the world? Where would I have sat at the wedding, groom-side or…”

He suddenly quieted down, shock falling on his features, widening his eyes before a deep frown took over as his gaze wavered.

“Savitar?” Iris called, a forbidding shiver going through her body as she slowly stood up from her seat and walked around to his side.

He grabbed his hair with one hand and looked around him, as if trying to look in the dark with eyes wide open—Barry had looked exactly that way when he’d been blinded…

“Barry,” she whispered, and Savitar’s eyes finally returned to her, but his stricken face forewarned the bad news he imparted.

“I can’t see his new memories anymore,” he told her in a hushed tone. “Our connection gets interrupted when he's not on Earth 1, but he's not supposed to be away for more than half an hour at a time. I haven't seen anything in over six hours now.”

“What? Why would he go to other…” Iris started asking, but she knew the answer to that.

Barry was looking for them, looking for _her_.

“He’s only looking for me,” Savitar corrected, creeping her out again with his ability to anticipate her thoughts.

He went to a cabinet and took out a plate, then took cutlery from a drawer before taking out the still warm lasagna.

“Um...What are you doing?” Iris questioned flatly.

She yelped as she felt gravity, or resistance, whatever law of physics applied when a speedster moved her around, and found herself on the dining table a few feet away, staring at a plate with a generous amount of lasagna, an appetizing salad on one side, a small basket of buttered slices of French baguette on the other.

“Eat first, then we’ll go back to Earth 1 and see what happened,” Savitar instructed from the opposite side of the table.

He didn’t seem happy about his own decision, so Iris kept her sigh of relief internal.

She was going home.

* * *

“This...This is trippy.” Cisco said in a whisper.

Earth 51 Cisco, who apart from a limp of his right leg looked exactly like Barry’s best friend.

Barry was still light-headed from learning that his fiancee’s doppelgänger was a metahuman and a criminal in a dystopian world where all meta powers had been cancelled by a global satellite transmission.

“You’ve vibed other versions of us before,” Caitlin pointed out skeptically.

This Caitlin was different from the one he’d left on Earth 1 that morning, but not really.

She was wearing much less make-up, and had her hair tied in a utilitarian ponytail. Her attire was just as simple: grey shirt and brown slacks, and flats, which was a far cry from the more sophisticated look he was used from Caitlin back home.

“Yeah but I haven’t been able to touch them!” Quantum argued as he poked Barry in the shoulder.

“Easy, he was in a car accident,” Earth 51 Iris informed the engineer—at least Barry assumed that this Cisco was also an engineer—as she returned to the room.

She’d unexpectedly ran out of the room after showing her face, leaving him alone on the infirmary bed until Caitlin and Cisco had arrived, much happier to see him if their group hug was any indicator.

Twain had changed into civilian clothes, and Barry was grateful to see that she also favored a functional wardrobe—a dark green blouse under a black blazer, dark jeans and flat-heeled ankle boots—because it helped his brain keep her separate from his Iris. She still wore makeup, but it was very subdued, and she had tucked her long hair in a dutch braid.

“It’s already making the news, by the way,” Earth 51 Caitlin commented with raised eyebrows at the thief. “Now the police know that we hack their com system. Couldn’t you have been more _discreet_?”

“After Captain Pretty Boy ruined my plans to get your mother’s new gene editor, _and_ bragged about it? No,” Twain replied snarkily.

Barry remembered how viciously N had stepped on Eddie’s doppelgänger, and didn’t know how to feel about learning that in this world, Iris hated Eddie Thawne.

“Heading back to your office?” Cisco’s doppelgänger asked Twain as he nodded at her change of clothes.

“Yeah,” she confirmed as she briefly glanced at Barry. “With news of the Chemist resurfacing, I bet that business will pick back up."

“Business?” Barry repeated, his alarm clear in his voice because the breacher quickly placated him with a wave of his hand.

“Iris’ a private investigator whose services have attracted an ambiguously shady clientele,” he explained. “Illegal stuff, but nothing blatantly unethical.”

“Is Joe okay with that?” Barry immediately asked, but then winced as he remembered the emotion in Earth 51 Iris’ voice when he’d previously mentioned his foster father.

Caitlin and Cisco’s doppelgängers also winced, but Nessir’s face remained impassive as she told him.

“Just to catch you up on who’s alive on this earth, this is it. Any close friend or family member is gone except for Caitlin’s mother and Cisco’s estranged family.”

Barry blinked at her, at the poker face he’d rarely seen on his Iris, and nodded his understanding.

“I gotta go,” Twain said with a slightly friendlier look at her friends before promptly exiting the infirmary.

A tense silence fell on the three remaining occupants of the room, broken by Quantum clearing his throat.

“Have I done something?” Barry asked. “I mean, has your Barry…”

“He died on a mission she had passionately disapproved of,” Caitlin’s doppelgänger informed him. “Which happened a few days after Joe West passed away from wounds sustained during a raid against Lady Kobra.”

“Who’s Lady Kobra?” Barry asked as he tucked his pillow between his back and the headboard of the bed, noting that he wasn’t wearing the jumpsuit anymore, but a generic grey t-shirt and sweatpants.

Who had changed him?

“You don’t have a super evil super fast speedster on your earth?” Cisco’s doppelgänger asked back with very high eyebrows.

“Not with that codename,” Barry answered, “but again, on my earth your codename is Vibe, not Quantum.”

“Huh,” the thief reacted, tilting his head to the side in reflection in a very Cisco kind of way. “Not bad at all, in fact that’s very fitting. Make sure to congratulate your Cisco on a great name as soon as you get back to your world.”

“Hopefully you’ll get to congratulate him yourself,” Barry said as he ran a hand through his hair—clean hair, no sign of dirt or ashes from the accident— “if all goes well he’ll be among the people coming to take me back to Earth 1.”

“Are you saying that, one: you’re from the reality at the center juncture of the entire multiverse, and two: you have a way out of here?” Quantum questioned.

“Yes for one, and maybe for two,” Barry replied. “My Cisco was supposed to open a breach to get me back, but I got arrested before the agreed time, so I left my suit and instructions on how to come to this earth without relying on meta powers.”

“The Legends?” the engineer asked, a spark of hope in his eyes.

“Yeah, you have them here too?”

“We haven’t managed to get a hold of them since the world became officially anti-meta,” Caitlin informed as she went to a drawer and retrieved a stethoscope, which she hung around her neck. “Now, I’m sure Iris took good care of you, but do you mind me checking your vitals? Who knows how the meta-dampening frequency can affect someone from a different earth.

“Oh, it’s affected me the way it’s supposed to, believe me,” Barry assured before sighing deeply. “Now that I’m aware of not having my powers, I can feel this emptiness where there’s supposed to be the Speed Force.”

“Yeah, not a great feeling when you already have so much human loss to deal with,” Cisco’s doppelgänger commented somberly.

“Sorry about your Barry, and everyone else,” the stranded speedster said before breathing deeply on Earth 51 Caitlin’s signal.

For a few minutes the group remained silent as the medical doctor conducted a few more routine tests, and other tests his Caitlin had never made him go through.

“No big alarm, considering the circumstances,” she diagnosed in the end, “but you could benefit from better sleep and more vitamins A and C. Also, if you don’t mind me asking: how is your mood lately?”

Barry tensed, and he saw his friends’ doppelgängers notice.

He didn’t owe them anything, they weren’t his people. But he’d already built a rapport with them, much more easily and faster than he'd expected despite his experience on Earth 2.

“Iris— _m_ y Iris— died sixteen days ago,” he let them know while closing his eyes, avoiding the reaction from his two companions.

“Does our Iris know?” Earth 51 Caitlin asked softly as she gripped his arm in sympathy.

He hadn’t told her, hadn’t had the time, but he suspected that she’d guessed. The look they’d exchanged had been so full of grief and understanding, she had to know.

“I think she does,” he voiced his suspicion. “I didn’t tell her but…”

“If you’re as similar to our Barry as you seem to be, she’s used whatever telepathic link exists between Barry Allen and Iris West to read your thoughts,” Quantum speculated.

Barry blinked at the outlaw’s comment.

Yes, Iris and him were—had been—best friends, but too many times they hadn't been unable to communicate beyond words.

Seriously, if such a telepathic link had existed between them, Barry wouldn’t have been able to hide his feelings for Iris all these years.

“We did think that she was a telepath at first, remember?” Caitlin’s doppelgänger joked as she opened a cabinet in a corner and pulled out a few bottles of pills.

That piqued Barry’s interest.

“So what’s her actual powers?” he asked. “On my earth, Iris isn’t a metahuman."

The two friends stared at him with wide eyes, Cisco’s doppelgänger even gasped.

“No way man, really?” he exclaimed as he leaned against the bed, as if weakened by the shock. “That’s such a major difference—here it was part of what made you Barry and Iris, the ‘Gold Standard.’"

Oh.

Oh?

“She’s a speedster too?” Barry chanced a guess.

“No, but she has fast healing like speedsters do,” the doctor corrected as she handed him a water bottle and two tablets—multivitamins. 

“Which is only a side effect of her main powers, not a power in itself, just like Barry’s fast healing comes from his fast metabolism,” the engineer asserted a bit to passionately.

“Not again,” Earth 51 Caitlin sighed as she shook her head.

“What do you mean?” Barry asked Cisco’s doppelgänger, earning a glare from the doctor.

“Iris can—well, could, she can’t now—see electromagnetic radiation beyond the visible spectrum,” Quantum informed him. “From infrared to gamma rays, but she can really sharpen her vision in the 100 to 2500 nm range.”

“That’s...near ultraviolet to near infrared,” Barry quickly estimated after swallowing his vitamins. “Oh, N.UV to N.IR...Is that why you named her N?”

“Dude, that’s exactly what our Barry said,” the engineer informed him with enthusiasm, “but no, I thought the initial N was cool because her fake name starts and ends with it. My theory—don't roll your eyes Cait, you know it's sound—is that Iris' ability to perceive ionizing radiations only makes sense in a context where she's exposed to them...”

“And since ionizing radiations damage the DNA, she needs the complementary power to repair any DNA damage rapidly," Barry completed. 

It wasn't that far-fetched. On Earth 1, the powers of many metas seemed to give them a survival advantage in their environment. If Earth 51 Iris had been in danger of death by radiation when she got her powers, Cisco's theory was simply a fact.

“If we hadn’t buried him ourselves, I’d believed that you’re him back from the grave,” Cisco’s doppelgänger reflected out loud, looking at Barry with barely concealed emotions.

“We miss him,” Caitlin’s double admitted with a nod as she slipped an arm around her friend’s waist.

More likely her lover’s waist, and that would’ve shocked Barry if his own Cisco and Caitlin hadn’t started a romantic relationship on Earth 1.

“Iris isn’t the same,” Quantum lamented. “She hasn’t even grieved properly. She’s avoided talking about Barry and it’s already been a month. I know it’s a terrible thing to say, but I hope that seeing you will jumpstart her tear ducts.”

Barry felt the urge to defend his fiancee’s doppelgänger, but he couldn’t divulge that he’d seen her cry. She’d made it clear that she didn’t want to discuss feelings with him either.

She’d been so clinical in her recount of recent events that it had blinded Barry to her identity. Yes, she had sounded close to the Team Flash of this earth, but it hadn’t even crossed Barry’s mind that she was his doppelgänger’s other half.

An alarm resonated in the entire building, and Quantum pulled back the long-sleeve on his left arm to reveal a smart watch. A press of one button silenced the alarm.

“Twain, you’re okay?” he nearly shouted into the com of the watch.

Barry felt as anxious as the engineer looked, already getting off the bed and looking for shoes, which Caitlin promptly supplied.

“I’m not sure,” Iris’ voice replied hesitantly, coming off the building’s main speakers system.

Barry fought a chill as he laced the converse shoes—which definitely belonged to his deceased doppelgänger—taking his eyes up to stare at Earth 51 Cisco.

“What do you mean? What’s wrong?” the engineer questioned as he settled on a bench at the corner of the room, folding up one of its compartments to reveal a touch screen.

By the time Barry and Caitlin’s doppelgänger reached the screen, Quantum had pulled the video feed of a camera showing Twain from the back, but giving a perfect view of the two people in front of her.

“Am I hallucinating, Cisco?” Twain asked with a slight shake of her voice.

“If you are, so are we,” the breacher assured.

Barry thought that this had to be his own weird dream, because right in front of Earth 51 Iris stood another Iris West, right next to another Barry Allen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not satisfied with this chapter but this is the best I could do. I planned on making Caitlin/Cisco more prominent. Hopefully I'll manage in future chapters.
> 
> Have people lost interest? I started writing this because of I wanted to explore Savitar and the multiverse, so if anyone wants to give me feedback on that or any other topic discussed in this fic, please do so, I'd really appreciate it!


	6. Another Plan (Part 1)—Iris/Savitar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Most of) what happened between the moment Iris and Savitar left Earth 572 and the moment they met E51 Iris.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter was getting too long so I decided to post half of it earlier.
> 
> Just saw an interview of TF cast at this year's SDCC and I'm so happy that Cisco's still there! I was so scared that Carlos Valdes would leave the show. Why did it take him this long to deny the rumors, huh?!?

It took no time at all to go from the kitchen in Savitar’s place to the breach room at STAR Labs on Earth 1. Iris pressed her hands against her ears as the alarm blared throughout the building.

For a fraction of a second the woosh of air in front of her made her think that Barry was actually there, but she was just as elated to see her baby brother in his yellow and red speedster suit.

Wally, on the other hand, took a second to process the sight in front of him, especially as he took her in.

“Iris?” he exhaled, pulling down his cowl as if it would help him to get a better look at her.

“Wally,” she said just as breathlessly, taking a step towards him.

Savitar's hand on her arm stopped her just as a breach opened to let Cisco and an armed Caitlin arrive.

“That’s not Barry,” the breacher announced as he extended his fists towards Savitar.

Iris saw her captor take in their welcoming committee with boredom. He didn’t feel threatened by any of them, which shouldn’t have surprised her. He’d neutralized Reverb and Killer Frost without a sweat just an hour ago.

But this was Earth 1. Iris was home, she could do this.

She could help the team trap Savitar, she knew she could. She had to.

“Cisco, where’s Barry?” she asked as she wrenched her arm away from Savitar’s grip, and pretended to rub a soreness away.

She used her left index finger to tap on her right arm.

After returning from Earth 2, Barry had asked Iris if she knew the tap code, and had taught her when she’d told him no. It had been much easier to master than morse code, which she hadn’t cared to learn from an impossibly nerdy Barry back in fifth grade.

Five taps, pause, then three. That caught Caitlin’s attention. Probably Cisco’s too, but Iris couldn’t tell with his goggles.

“Didn’t Savitar tell you? He’s trapped on Earth 51,” Vibe replied, his hands still extended towards his target. “It’s a world that’s banned inter-dimensional travel, and somehow it’s managed to block all meta powers".

“How do you know that?” Iris asked again, this time tapping her left finger on her left thigh, where Savitar couldn’t see.

Four–two. Five–three. Five–one. One–three…

The familiar sound of sizzling electricity resonated just as Iris blinked at the gushes of air coming from both in front of her and her right side.

“Where did they go?” Caitlin asked as she alternatively stared, like Iris, at the empty spots where Wally and Savitar had stood a second ago.

“Wally probably saw what you were tapping,” Cisco explained to Iris with a nod. “Maybe he brought him there.”

“Wally doesn’t stand a chance against Savitar!” Caitlin reminded them both.

“Cisco, breach us to your workshop!” Iris requested. “Caitlin, stand by the pipeline to activate the dampening field. Maybe with a stun gun—”

She gasped as she landed in Cisco’s workshop, propping her hand against the engineer’s ‘old projects’ bench behind her as she lost her balance.

“A stun gun, really,” Savitar drawled.

He was leaning against the weaponry shelf, his head right next to the stun gun Iris had thought to use against him.

“Where’s Wally?” she asked with a barely controlled voice as she walked backward behind the bench, trying to put a barrier between her and the speedster.

“At the infirmary,” Savitar replied matter-of-factly. “I broke his arm this time. It will heal faster than his leg, I’m sure.”

Iris didn’t try to quiet her sob at the thought of her younger brother getting hurt trying to protect her again, though she brought her left hand to her mouth to contain the noise.

She hoped that it distracted Barry’s time remnant enough that he didn’t notice her grabbing a device from the bench with her right hand and keeping it tucked to her palm with her thumb.

“Stop right there!” Cisco shouted as he sprinted into the room, immediately shooting air waves at Savitar.

Those only reached the shelves because Savitar dodged them, and the glass slots broke with a loud crash.

A heartbeat later, Savitar was standing right across the bench from Iris.

“I thought we had an understanding,” the speedster said slowly, the split between his eyebrows betraying his frustration.

He wasn’t paying attention to Cisco, who couldn’t hit him with another attack anyway because if he missed, his waves would hit Iris instead.

“We came here to figure out what happened to Barry, make sure he’s still alive, then return to our home,” Savitar added.

“ _ Our home _ ?” Iris repeated hysterically.

She took a deep breath to calm down, then walked slowly toward the speedster, who matched her movements so that he remained a difficult target for Cisco, who was still aiming his hands at him.

“I’d rather sleep in a pipeline than call that place my  _ home _ ,” Iris declared slowly and with venom.

_ Please Cisco _ , she thought,  _ please get the clue _ .

The way the breacher nodded as he drew one of his arms away from Savitar made Iris internally light up in triumph, but Savitar only laughed.

“You saw me best Reverb not an hour ago,” he reminded her with a dismissive wave at Cisco, “and your next attempt to escape me relies on Vibe, a significantly less dangerous breacher?”

“I’ll show you dangerous!” Cisco warned as he shifted his position, getting Iris out of range of the aim of his other hand.

But in less time that it took Iris to blink, Savitar was holding her in front of him, her back to his front, his hands heavy on her shoulders.

“Shit,” Cisco cursed before lowering both arms, but Iris shook her head, and started blinking.

Four–one. Four–three. Four–two. Four–four.

“You know, I thought that this time we could get along,” Savitar whispered into Iris’ ear just as her eyes started tearing up from the effort of coordinating her blinks.

“We could’ve gone to Earth 51 together, just you and I,” he revealed just as quietly, and damn it but the sound of his voice, the caress of his breath and his body heat was doing  _ things _ to Iris.

“It would’ve been like at Summer Camp in seventh grade, when we split from the search party looking for Christine Hudson,” the time remnant reminisced as he bent over to align his cheek to Iris.

“You’d said that it was good practice for when we worked together at CCPD, you as a detective and me as a CSI,” he recalled with fondness. “We found Christine before everyone else thanks to my knowledge of the ecosystem and your ability to put yourself in her shoes. We were a great team back then. We’ve always been one.”

Iris mentally braced herself just as she physically let herself shiver from the touch of Savitar’s thumbs rubbing circles into her covered shoulders.

Slowly and with control, she turned her head to almost touch her nose to his, and let his scent—identical to Barry’s—steady her heartbeat and right hand.

“We  _ are _ a great team,” she agreed softly, her breath bouncing off Savitar’s face, and she forced herself to soften her gaze as she looked at his lips, then at the speedster’s dilated pupils, and she actually didn’t need to force the bite of her lips because seriously Barry was irresistible up close when he looked at her like that— _ but he’s not Barry _ , she reminded herself as she slowly brought her right hand to his unscarred skin.

He looked ready to kiss her. He’d clearly forgotten about Cisco, and in another circumstance Iris would be giddy knowing that she held such power over even this version of Barry, but she was on a mission here.

So she went for broke.

“But you said it yourself,” she whispered as she used her right index and middle fingers on Savitar’s jaw to pull him impossibly closer, their breaths mingling.

“You’re  _ not _ Barry,” she said as she slapped her palm on his neck, and the disk she’d been concealing attached itself to his skin right on top of his jugular.

Savitar’s spasm slightly shoved her away from him, but she used the momentum to pivot on her heels and to power her left hook.

“Now Cisco!” she shouted as her fist connected to Savitar’s temple—he had doubled over at the pain of the speed force syphon—and gritted her teeth as she hauled his taller frame a few steps over to throw him into the portal the breacher had opened. Cisco jumped after him into the interdimensional doorway.

When the breach closed Iris rushed to Cisco’s communication station, pressing frantically on a few keys before managing to connect the speakers.

“Cisco, did you get him in?” she asked shakily, her hands braced over the table as she wished Cisco had also camera surveillance in his workshop. “Caitlin, Wally! Are you okay?”

“Savitar’s locked in a cell, all clear Iris!” Caitlin excitedly informed her.

“Anyone willing to bring me into the loop here?” Wells said at the door of Cisco’s workshop.

At first Iris thought it was H.R., but then she saw the cup in his hand. A smoothie from Big Belly Burger, not a coffee from Jitters. Also, he was wearing glasses. 

“Harry?” she called.

“Hello Iris,” the Earth 2 genius greeted before briefly slurping his drink from a straw. “I was led to think that you were dead. It’s good to see that it didn’t last. Maybe now Allen will stop wasting his time chasing Savitar across the multiverse and actually help us with the inter-dimensional quantum sonar.”

“Err...Okay,” Iris replied dumbly as he walked away.

She followed him to the cortex, where she saw for herself that Savitar was unconscious in one of the pipeline cells. After Iris gave Wally a loud kiss on the cheek and a side hug on his intact side, she exchanged full and tight hugs with Caitlin and Cisco—it felt good to be with the real ones this time.

While Caitlin put Wally’s arm in a sling with the promise that he’d fully heal in less than twelve hours, Cisco called the rest of the team. 

Half an hour later, Iris was dwarfed in her dad’s embrace, both of them crying tears of joy. Even Julian hugged her.

“How the hell is it even possible?” her father asked. “I carried your dead body in my arms, baby girl. We buried you…”

Iris figured it out just as the detective snapped his fingers.

“Closed casket,” they simultaneously said, and Iris turned to her still injured brother who quizzically stared at them.

“For some reason our family always keeps caskets closed during funerals,” she informed him before turning back to her dad. “Barry knows that. You never let him come to funerals with us but I gave him details every time we got back from one.”

“So Savitar took your body before it got buried,” Julian deduced—Cisco whispered  _ ‘body snatcher, gross’— _ “but if you just woke up today, that’s fifteen days of body decomposition, Iris, not even the best morgue fridge could stop that…”

“But cryogenisation would,” Caitlin jumped in, her eyes widening in alarming proportions before she stared at Cisco “Oh god, Cisco, we did this…”

“No we didn’t,” Cisco instinctively objected though he looked confused. “Wait, what did we not do?”

“I’ve been talking to my mother,” the doctor informed the group, looking more and more guilty. “When we came back last week, she visited me to check for herself that the gene therapy to get rid of Killer Frost she gave Barry worked.”

“What gene therapy? Barry never mentioned that,” Julian pointed out.

“My mother also asked me,” Caitlin recounted, her eyes shifting downward as she wrapped her arms around herself, “how Barry got so severely burned on his face…”

Silence descended within the group as they all took in the information.

Iris could feel the tension rising, but they didn’t have time to process another lie by omission from Caitlin. And Caitlin was  _ not _ to blame for Savitar’s actions.

“Guys, Barry’s still out there,” she reminded loudly. “However Savitar manipulated you two to bring me back,” she added as she looked at Cisco and Caitlin, “I’m actually glad that you contributed. I hate owing my life to him alone. We can talk about it later,  _ after _ we bring Barry back. Cisco, please tell me that you know how to bring him back.”

“I can’t but I can tell you something that will help,” her fiance’s second best friend replied.

And yeah, Iris West was Barry Allen’s first and ultimate best friend, them becoming lovers didn’t change that.

“I know exactly why he’s stuck on Earth 51,” the breacher claimed.

* * *

Although his body was weakened, Savitar’s mind was sharp as soon as he regained consciousness in one of the pipeline cells.

He was torn between being outraged and being proud at Iris’ deception.

Of course she was his only weakness, and she’d exploited that. For seconds that had felt like hours, Savitar had thought that he would experience the taste of her lips for the first time in centuries, not through Barry’s memories but with his own body.

Instead, he’d tasted her championship-worthy left hook, right after the stinging bite of the speed force syphon.

Savitar was impressed that Iris had identified it in the midst of Cisco’s countless unfinished projects. Barry had never showed it to her, so she might have learned about it herself after the team had told her about Harry using another prototype to steal Barry's peed force for Zoom.

Because of the Waverider message warning the team against Barry, Cisco had modified the syphon so that it could cut off speedsters from the Speed Force momentarily, but brutally enough that it would leave them disoriented.

The last time Barry Allen had seen the syphon, it had a battery malfunction, so no one had ever used it. It was just Savitar’s luck that the malfunction had resolved itself the one time the syphon was used against him.

No, this had nothing to do with luck, or lack thereof. He shouldn’t undermine Iris’ resourcefulness and strength, not even in his head. She’d earned that victory against him. Not fairly, but she’d beat him. 

The disk had already fallen from his neck, but its point of contact was still raw when Savitar pressed a finger to it as he dragged himself to a seated position against the wall facing the sealed entrance to the cell.

Instead of uselessly lamenting on his imprisonment, he closed his eyes and revisited those precious seconds when Iris had looked like she wanted him. She couldn’t have faked her desire to kiss him, he knew her too well to be fooled by fake sentiments.

Of course, this was only possible because he didn’t have his scars anymore. She wouldn’t have so confidently turned his head with her own fingers if his skin had held the marks that had differentiated him from her fiance.

It was pathetic, but Savitar would treasure that brief intimate moment with Iris, even the suckerpunch. That had probably been the last time he would ever feel her touch again.

He should’ve hugged her back when she’d just woken up, when she thought he was Barry…

The groan of the seal lifting away from the cell door made his eyes snap open, though he had to squint them against the brighter lighting outside of his jail.

He then blinked to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.

Iris was standing across the still closed door, looking at him expectantly. She was alone with him in the pipeline.

“How do you feel?” she asked, her harsh tone indicating that she didn’t truly care.

He didn’t reply, instead took his fill of her changed appearance.

She was wearing her favorite ‘investigation outfit’: a wide-skirt black dress under one of her lighter trench coats—the beige one, with the dozen of hidden pockets—the high-knee black leather boots she could actually run with, and a smokey eye look to enhance her attractiveness in case she had to charm her way into places with restricted access.

The look was a bit off because her hair was still curly, though it now looked damp with product, and tightly snug to her scalp with two dutch braids, likely so she could achieve more controlled curls and volume once it dried. Without the makeup she would’ve looked cute, but with it she looked mature and unbelievably stunning.

“Savitar,” Iris called, evidently irritated that he’d ignored her.

“What,” he asked flatly, faintly pleased to hear her say the name he had chosen.

“How do you feel?” she asked again, more calmly this time.

Surely she knew. He felt stupid and weak, and crazily turned on by her kickass attitude. But mostly, he felt—

“Betrayed?” she guessed, her head tilted to the side as she studied him with narrowed eyes. “Powerless? Helpless? Without control?”

Oh.

Of course she’d known how he felt. She would know better than anyone how he felt now.

He’d made her feel that way for months.

“I know how you feel because  _ you _ made  _ me _ feel that way for months,” she indeed said as she took a step closer to the door and went down on one knee to be level with him.

“You know why I had to do it,” he argued weakly.

“There’s always another way, you of all people should know that!” she countered.

“Another way to losing a loved one doomed to be murdered in front of me? Yes there is,” he agreed. “Going back in time and messing up the timeline, is that the other way you would’ve preferred, Iris?”

“Stop saying it like you’re not Barry!” she demanded, her voice going higher. “You’re his time remnant from the future, so everything Barry did, you did too!”

“I _didn’t_ let you die without trying _everything_ that could be done to save you,” he reminded her. “I didn’t rely on some stranger’s invention to come up with a weapon mentioned by my unreliable future self…”

“No, you relied on Cisco and Caitlin instead,” Iris cut him off.

Ah, so they’d figured it out. Oh well.

“What can I say, they’re the best,” Savitar admitted with a smug smile and a casual shrug, which succeeded in making Iris frown in irritation.

Hey, once upon a time they were best friends, he still drew immense satisfaction from annoying her.

“Unlike your Barry, I didn’t neglect their talents,” he added. “Did he even care about Caitlin losing herself to her cruel alter ego? I’m the one who got a cure for her.”

That hit a sore spot, as Iris pursed her lips guiltily.

Savitar knew that he’d only had the luxury of caring for his once friends and teammates because he already had a plan to save Iris, and that plan had included them.

He understood Barry’s blinded worry for Iris and Iris alone, he’d felt it himself. It defined him even now, was part of his DNA even more than the Dark Matter Thawne had forced on him with the explosion of the particle accelerator.

But he’d had plenty of hindsight along with centuries to also think about his two friends from STAR Labs. The people who had helped the fake Harrison Wells keep him alive for nine months, who had befriended him and helped him navigate his powers and keep Central City safe without asking anything from him in return.

Unlike Barry, he’d had time to analyze the looks Cisco would furtively direct at Caitlin when he thought no one could catch him.

The long hugs, the hand squeezes, the secret smiles...How these two had not figured out that they were in love with each other was beyond him.

So, yes, Savitar had taken advantage of Cisco’s feelings for Caitlin to further his plans, but he’d also left his two friends their love to hang onto. He knew more than anyone that it was the only thing that could keep you afloat when you were drowning in the depth of grief. 

“Is that how you justified forcing them to betray Barry?” Iris asked him. “They feel awful for helping you kidnap me and gain your new powers, and they don’t even remember how they did it.”

“It would be ungrateful of Barry not to forgive them for that,” Savitar stated calmly. “Without them, he wouldn’t have you back. He doesn’t _deserve_ to have you back—”

“But _you_ do?” she questioned as she brought her other knee down and sat on her haunches. “You think that because you did all these horrible things, did everything in your power to save me, you deserve to _have_ me back? I’m not your Iris, and even if I were, I’m not yours to _keep_ like some trophy!”

“I know that!” he replied loudly, a bit taken aback at the slight echo—his voice coming out of his mouth and the microphone Iris was hearing him from.

Iris searched his eyes, likely confused by his admission.

He didn’t have anything left to lose. Might as well be sincere.

“I’m the last person who deserves to breathe the same air as you Iris, believe me, I know that,” he confessed. “But knowing, and even understanding it is different from accepting it. I couldn’t leave you to die for my mistakes, but neither could I allow _him_ to savor a life with you while I was left with nothing. Of course I knew that the chances of you wanting to be by my side were slim, but what else was there to do? Let you go to another guy when I could have a fighting chance? I’ve had feelings for you since I was ten, Iris. These feelings defy logic, span across multiverses and managed to give a big middle finger to a time loop I’m still trying to wrap my head around.”

Iris actually chuckled as his levity, though she looked away when he stared at her with hope.

“When Barry told us that you were...his time remnant,” she said while staring at the frame of the cell door, “I tried to comfort him, to reassure him that him and you were different, but…”

Savitar saw her swallow and wipe a perfectly dry hand on her coat before she found the courage—which she had in spades, he’d never doubted it—to look him in the eyes.

“He said that he saw himself in you, that all the darkness in you was also in him, that the only difference was that he still had me,” she finished in a bit of a rush, as if saying it all in one breath would prevent her from chickening out.

“I remember,” he let her know, making her blink in confusion before she remembered the fact that Barry Allen’s memories were his too.

“Back then, I felt secretly happy that I was the one source of happiness that could keep Barry in the light,” she confessed quietly, shyly even.

“Iris,” he tried to admonish her, but his voice came out weak and breathless, as usual.

“But now I look at you—I _look_ at you and I,” she said around a sob, and Savitar wanted to get out of the cell and hug her, or alternatively get out of the cell and punch someone, something, the universe, for making her suffer on his behalf.

“How can I be good for Barry, for  _ any _ version of you, when I led you to do such terrible things?” she asked as she knuckled away tears before they rolled down her cheeks, saving her makeup from ruin.

“You’re not responsible for my feelings Iris,” he assured her as he crawled to the door, but sat with his back to it instead of facing her. “Nor for Barry's. Don’t do this to yours—”

“But if I had reciprocated Barry’s feelings earlier,” she chanced, to his surprise.

He’d always wondered, always fantasized about being with Iris since ninth grade, about confessing his feelings to her instead of resigning himself to his best friend status and accepting Becky Cooper's advances.

“Maybe if I’d opened my eyes earlier to the possibility of us being more than best friends, this obsession for me wouldn’t have tainted your soul,” Iris hypothesized.

She startled when she head Savitar scoff.

“What?” she asked defensively. “I’m not—Sorry if that sounded conceited or condescending but…”

“Ask Barry and he’ll tell you: any day he wakes up in a world where you return his feelings, let alone accepted to be his wife, is a miracle,” he interrupted her. “Love is a great power that as humans we hardly know how to channel. Yes, power can be corrupted, can blind us to things we should take great care of tending to, but in and of itself love is good.”

He let Iris search his eyes, a hint of awe in her gaze, before he couldn’t take it anymore and looked away.

“I know that my love for you is good,” he claimed with more confidence than he felt. “It’s not love that’s tainted my soul-nor you, the source of that love. As Barry told you, it’s the anger, and the violence, and the losses I’ve experienced, even before losing you—those are what shaped me.”

She didn’t seem convinced, looking small and sad and lost against the thick glass of his cell door.

“Iris,” he said to make her look at him, “you know it’s true. You saw how Barry was when he didn't remember anything. Getting those memories of falling in love with you all over again with no pain from the past weighing me down...I'd never felt so light. I was alone and confused but these images in my head felt absolutely right.”

A spark of recognition lit her lovely eyes, and she perked up a bit, and his chest swelled with pride at being able to bring out that special, grateful smile on her face.

They remained silent for what felt like hours—powers or not, time slowed down in reverence for Iris West—sitting across each other, the cell door almost an abstract concept in that rare moment of peace and understanding between them.

“Do I deserve to know what you and the team plan on doing with me?” he asked calmly, resigned to living the rest of his days in this small space, or to be transferred to Iron Heights.

“Oh, right,” Iris said hurriedly as she scrambled back to her feet, straightening her outfit and fidgeting with her two braids before she stood tall and looked down on him.

Fuck, she was so beautiful, and so sexy with that smokey eye look. She was attractively authoritative even with her two braids, looking bossy without even saying a word.

“You and I are going to Earth 51 to get Barry,” she declared.

It took a second or two for Savitar to stop marveling at her attractiveness and process the words her painted lips had imparted.

What?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 will take longer to edit because of a POV change, and because I'm trying to sneak in more Cisco/Caitlin moments.
> 
> Kudos and comments make me happy! Questions and reactions count, too :)


	7. Another Plan (Part 2)— Savitar/Cisco (Quantum)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The continuation of Savitar's POV from last chapter, and lots of exposition on the Earth 51 plot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took me so much longer to write than the others because of all the exposition in E51 Cisco's POV. Ask me questions if anything confuses you (it could be a typo or rewrite I missed)!

Savitar blinked at Iris, who in turned frowned at him. 

“Why do you look surprised? It was _your_ idea!” she pointed out with an accusing finger.

“Umm, that was _before_ you sucker punched me and threw me here,” he countered with a tilt of his head. 

His temple was still sore, as was the rest of his body for being so unceremoniously dumped into this cell. He stood up to look down at her anyway.

“Really?” Iris let out with a scoff, crossing her arms and staring back at him. “So _you’re_ going to hold a grudge for that, after you’ve made my life a living hell for months, stabbed me to death, and abducted me? Real mature, Allen.”

“Well, have you forgiven me?” Savitar threw back at her before he could debate whether or not being called ‘Allen’ irritated him.

“ _Well_ , I am talking to you like a reasonable adult, am I not?” she argued, her voice raised in irritation.

“That doesn’t prove anything—” he tried to counter, but the rush of footsteps behind Iris froze them both.

“Iris!” Joe called, his gun ready though lowered by his side, Cisco, Wells and Caitlin on his heels.

Savitar bet she hadn’t told them that she’d speak to him alone.

“I’m fine dad,” she reassured without taking her eyes away from Savitar, though she did take a step back from the cell door.

That gave Joe the perfect view on Savitar’s right profile.

His eyes widened comically, and he opened and closed his mouth a few times, which caught Cisco’s attention.

“Yeah, not so scary without his pizza face, I know,” the young genius drawled.

“I think Joe’s rather shocked by his resemblance to Barry, Cisco,” Caitlin helpfully suggested. 

“How do you know that it’s not—how?” Joe stuttered, his brain clearly not processing what he was seeing.

“It _is_ Savitar, dad,” Iris confirmed with a brief look at her dad over her shoulder before waving a hand in front of her. “What, can’t you feel his godly aura from where you stand?”

Savitar almost snorted at her lame joke, while Cisco freely laughed at it. 

“Seriously, how do we differentiate them now?” the detective asked as he looked around the group before resting his eyes on Iris, who had turned halfway towards her father.

“If he gets out of the cell, what stops him from quickly changing his hair and pretend to be Barry when he returns from Earth 51?” Joe further questioned. 

Iris quickly glanced at Savitar, who chose to blink instead of rolling his eyes at the ridiculous accusation. 

If he’d wanted to impersonate Barry, he would have. If lying to Iris had been part of his plan, none of the ridiculousness of this day would’ve happened. He’d probably be in bed with Iris instead, enjoying hours of bliss until she started asking questions about being on a different earth. 

“We can’t let him go there,” Joe insisted, “and you’re definitely not going, Iris.” 

“Dad, we’ve been over this!” Iris exclaimed angrily, but it was Cisco who stepped closer to her.

“Listen, Harry and I can make something to cancel out the meta-dampening signal, give us a couple days—”

“How do you know that it’s going to work on Earth 51?” Iris challenged, her arms back to being crossed. “And I already told you, we’re not waiting another hour to get Barry back. He’s probably already in the Earth 51 equivalent of Iron Height as we speak, and who knows what punishment awaits metas there?”

“Alright, so Cisco and Harry go on Earth 51 and get him out,” Joe proposed, “not _you_!”

“And who’s going to protect Central City? The Flash is _missing_!” Iris reminded him. “Wally’s still recovering—and Savitar swallowed at the furious glare she spared him before looking back at her father—so Cisco and Harry are needed here!” 

“You can’t expect me to let my only non-meta human kid go to another earth, it’s too dangerous!” Joe basically shouted at his daughter. 

Savitar sighed. This coming from the same man who had favored teaching his daughter how to shoot and fight over teaching her how to cook. On an earth where metas couldn’t use their powers, she had more chance of defending herself than Barry or Wally.

Iris’ silence was telling. She way furious. Even Cisco took a few steps back to hide behind a grimacing Caitlin. 

“Baby girl,” Joe immediately atoned, his voice soft. “I just got you back…”

“Don’t you want Barry back, too?” Iris asked too evenly. “He’s without his powers right now. But he’s a guy, so he’ll be okay, right?”

Joe had it coming.

“Iris that’s not fair,” the detective whined anyway, hurt widening his eyes.

“Not it’s not!” Iris confirmed, though it was clear she wasn’t actually agreeing with Joe’s point. “I’ll apologize when I come back with Barry, safe and sound.”

She then turned her back to her chastised father, only to face Savitar with a hard gaze. 

“Cisco’s right, isn’t he? If Barry dies, so will you?” she questioned. 

“More likely than not,” he admitted with a shrug.

He wasn’t going to test her patience by pointing out that many quantum physics theories had stopped applying to him the moment he had resurrected her.

“Then let’s go,” Iris said decisively before stepping away from the door to unlock it at the monitor.

“Iris!” everyone shouted at her, but she didn’t pay them any attention.

She kept her eyes on Savitar, who swallowed back a sigh of relief at the rush of his speed force, and at the gradual but swift disappearance of any soreness and physical discomfort.

“Betray me, and I’ll make you wish you had killed me for good,” Iris warned him in such an even voice that it took him a second for the threat to register.

He stared at her back as she walked away from the pipeline, and even exchanged his worried look with Joe and Cisco.

Savitar was about to follow Joe and find Iris when the sound of a loading stun gun snapped him out of his panicked state, and he glared at Harry, who was to thank for that.

“Because of you, my daughter is stuck on Earth 3 fighting crimes that should be the responsibility of another speedster,” the Earth 2 genius reminded him. 

Cisco and Caitlin seemed to have forgotten the fact too, because their gazes immediately turned hostile.

“I could very well help with that,” Savitar taunted. “All I’d need to do is finish imprinting the quark sphere with Barry’s DNA _and_ figure out the initial velocity of the pulse frequency with a few test trials,” he added, relishing the shock on the scientist’s face, “but I won’t do it because _I’m not Barry_.”

He sped past the trio and startled Julian as he appeared at the door of the cortex.

The CSI had likely watched Iris free him from the surveillance cameras because he didn’t alert anyone, but simply went to get a seat as far away from Savitar as he could.

Savitar eyed Iris, who was talking to Wally in the small infirmary. Her younger brother didn’t look happy to hear whatever she was saying, but he eventually let out a sigh of resignation and accepted her half hug.

“So, all this time, you wanted to _save_ her,” Joe’s voice said behind Savitar.

He’d heard him coming and stop a few yards away from him, but hadn’t expected the detective to engage him in a conversation. 

Which is why he didn’t acknowledge Joe’s presence nor his words. 

“You said that you’re not Barry,” the detective kept going, and this time Savitar turned his head to glare at him, but the older man pushed “yet here you are, following her around to make sure she’s not harmed in any way.”

“What’s the point of this conversation,” Savitar asked flatly. 

Joe sighed, and rubbed his face with a hand.

He looked exhausted, and it made Savitar feel only slightly guilty to know that he was partly responsible for his state.

“Just, just keep her safe, please,” Joe requested as he walked towards him. “You probably don’t need me to ask you that, but—”

“She’s not defenseless!” Savitar almost shouted.

For a tense second he felt as shocked by his own words as Joe looked. But then he decided to voice his thoughts.

“You made sure of that yourself,” he pointed out with a wave of his hand at the detective. “You’re still her father, so it’s normal for you to worry, but what was the point of teaching her how to fight if you’re unwilling to let her do it when the situation calls for it?” 

“That’s rich coming from the guy who _killed_ her,” Joe countered between gritted teeth.

“I’m a speedster, _the fastest_ of them all,” Savitar reminded him. “And that still didn’t stop her from decking me the first chance she got. I’d say she’ll be just fine defending herself on an earth with no meta humans whatsoever.”

“Earth was plenty dangerous before meta-humans became a threat,” the cop argued, his eyebrows doing that funny thing he did when he wanted to convey ‘are you serious right now?’ without words.

“And guess what, Joe?” Savitar said as he fully turned to the older man. “In twenty of the thirty four earths I’ve been to, Iris West is a _cop_ , protecting people from _all_ kinds of threats, human and meta-human. She’s got what it takes to at least protect herself.”

That shut the old man, but only for a few seconds.

“You of all people should understand how protective I feel about my girl,” Joe grumbled. 

“I’ve never said that I wouldn’t protect her at the first sign of a danger that she can’t handle,” Savitar pointed out. “But unlike you or Barry, I have no intention of pissing her off with all these passive-aggressive reminders that she’s not a meta.”

Did they ever stop to think how that made her feel? Barry and Joe worked for the police, Barry and Wally were superheroes… Yes, she was brave, and strong, and had stopped crimes with her investigative and writing skills, but Savitar suspected—as did Barry—that she felt left out at times. 

She had yet to discover that she wasn’t the odd one out anymore. He certainly wasn’t going to break up the news to her.

“Should I be worried that you two are having a civilized conversation?” Iris herself asked from beyond the door.

Savitar remained calm as he turned to her, glad to see that she didn’t look as angry anymore.

“I was just waiting for you,” he replied nonchalantly with a shrug. “I can go to Earth 51 myself, but you need Cisco to breach you there.” 

“We’ll go through Cisco’s breach together,” Iris specified, just as Cisco, Caitlin and Harry walked by.

“For the record, we still haven’t forgiven you for any of the things you’ve done to us,” the breacher said as he kept going past the cortex, towards the elevator to go down to the basement.

“He could’ve opened a breach to the breach room right here,” Wells mumbled before passing by Savitar to go sit at the central monitor in the cortex.

Iris hugged Caitlin, who failed at intimidating Savitar with a glare as she returned the gesture of affection.

The speedster looked away as Iris and Joe stared at each other for a moment before hugging each other tightly. 

“Please,” Joe simply said, but Savitar didn’t hear any reply from Iris, who then walked towards the elevator. 

Savitar sped to the breach room himself, ignoring Cisco’s complaint at the gust of wind he produced. 

“You’re not fooling me, you know,” the breacher told him.

Savitar raised his head to the ceiling. He hadn’t forgotten how talkative everyone on the team was, but he still was annoyed by the fact. 

“You selectively erased Caitlin and my memories,” Cisco pointed out. “You could’ve wiped off all nine days, but you let us remember that—Yeah, you’re as big of a romantic as Barry is.”

“Feel free to make your point before Iris gets here,” Savitar sarcastically encouraged.

“You’re kind of a good guy,” the genius argued. “You haven’t killed anyone, you didn’t force the metas you created to be evil. You just created this illusion of being an evil god of speed—dude, you should’ve let me name you, _Savitar_ is lame—when all this time, your sole goal was to save Iris. I bet you’re the one who got Killer Frost out of Caitlin, too.” 

“You’ve got me all figured out, haven’t you?” Savitar drawled, though Cisco’s words were causing something to twist in his guts. 

“Maybe you don’t even need Barry to be alive to exist,” Cisco added. “After all, there are versions of Eobard Thawne still kicking despite Eddie being dead. But here you are helping us get our friend back." 

“What do you truly want to say, Cisco?” Savitar interrogated the breacher.

“Thank you,” he answered.

Surprised, Savitar looked at the engineer. His eyes reflected the round-about gratitude he’d just spat, but they held something else.

Guilt. 

“You feel bad for breaching him there,” Savitar guessed. “You feel responsible for his trouble.”

Cisco didn’t say anything, but he did tuck his hair behind his ear and avoided his gaze, which was as good as validating his guess. 

“Your only mistake was to let him use your time and powers as a convenient mean to his selfish end,” Savitar assured him. “He’s known about his ability to travel to different earths for a while now, he shouldn’t need you to help him do it anymore.” 

“Really dude?” Cisco exclaimed.

“You’re the one who wants to hold me to some ridiculous standards of goodness when all I’ve done is make you and your friends suffer,” the speedster pointed out. “Why don’t you hold Barry Allen to high standards as well, as a friend and as a speedster?”

Before Cisco could reply, Iris arrived in the room. She looked between the two of them before walking down the few steps to stand by Savitar. 

“You be safe out there,” the genius said before opening a breach. “Remember, if push comes to shove…” 

“I should retreat to somewhere safe and keep my tracking device active so the Legends can locate me, yes, I remember Cisco,” Iris said as she squeezed her friend in a hug. “You keep everyone safe here, okay?” 

“Will tell you all about the prowess of Team Vibe when you get back,” Cisco joked.

Iris grinned at him before sparing a look for Savitar as she stepped into the trans-dimensional portal.

The speedster didn’t say goodbye, he simply followed Iris into Earth 51.

Cisco had breached them at the mirror location of one of Well’s—Thawne’s—warehouses, the one they’d used as a training ground when the crazy aliens had invaded a few months back.

On Earth 51 the place was the 'C. Snow' building of Tannhauser Industries.

“Not sure if it’s a good thing that we landed outside rather than inside of the building,” Iris commented as she read the sign on the perimeter. "That's kind of a good sign right, she's likely not Killer Frost on this earth," she added as she started looking around for a door. 

Savitar stopped her with a hand on her shoulder just as the mild headache accompanying the rush of Barry’s memories made him momentarily dizzy.*

“What’s wrong?” Iris asked as she detected his discomfort.

“He could be in here,” Savitar hypothesized

Barry was currently talking to Cisco and Caitlin’s doppelgängers in a well-equipped infirmary, so chances indeed were that he was in that building.

Iris seemed skeptical, which he could understand because that was way too convenient.

“One way to make sure, right?” the reporter commented as she stepped around Savitar to resume her search for a door.

The speedster sighed before falling in steps with her, looking out for surveillance cameras.

When Iris gasped, Savitar first thought that she had, like him, detected the camera planted above the first door they found.

A second later, he realized that she was actually shocked by the sight of her doppelgänger.

* * *

Cisco stared dumbly at Barry Allen prime—from Earth 1—after the latter finished his fast, winded story about how the two new doppelgängers were actually his time remnant from the future and his not-so-dead-after-all Iris.

“That didn’t make any sense,” the engineer commented. “Like, at all. Why would your own time remnant want to kill Iris?”

“They’re coming,” Caitlin informed them as she rushed towards her office.

Good thing she’d decided to keep an eye on the monitor, because Cisco had been too distracted by the craziness of Barry prime’s words.

The guy looked on the verge of a mental breakdown, to be honest. The only time the real Barry had looked like that was after his fight with Iris that fateful night.

“Here,” Caitlin said as she passed a stun gun to Barry.

“Wait, wait!” Cisco exclaimed, holding both his hands up. “First of all, why should we believe the Barry Allen doppelgänger who claimed that his time remnant killed his Iris while we just saw proof that she’s alive and well?”

“What’s your second point?” Caitlin asked flatly, unimpressed by his outburst, before loading her gun and pointing it towards the entrance to her personal lab.

Cisco took the second Iris used to unlock the door to be pissed that she would let strangers know how to get here. This was their ‘in plain sight’ secret HQ!

“His second point was actually a question,” the time remnant of Barry Allen said as he followed Iris inside the lab, Iris prime right behind him.

God, Cisco was getting dizzy already.

“Yeah? What I was going to ask?” the engineer challenged the intruder after waving at Iris prime, who looked ridiculously happy to see him.

“You’re a nerd on all the earths I’ve seen a Cisco Ramon, so I assume that you’d want to know if there is a some speed force-based method to tell us apart,” the time remnant in question said.

Exactly. Eureka. Ten out of ten. 

Also, how the fuck had he heard Cisco from across the sound-proof walls and door?

“Barry told us that he’s hostile,” Caitlin told Iris, who had drawn out her own stun gun but was clearly confused about where to point it.

“Wait, no, he’s not hostile!” Iris prime promised, putting herself between Caitlin’s aim and the time remnant—what had Barry prime called him, already? Sat-something?

“Savitar,” Barry prime helpfully called out, his borrowed stun gun loaded but idle at his side. 

He glared murderously at his time remnant before giving the softest, most adoring look at Iris prime.

“Iris,” Barry prime said, in that theatrical whisper Cisco’s best friend had also used.

Iris prime’s eyes flooded with tears instantly—wow, she was quite different from Iris, the hair and makeup and wardrobe distinguishing her from Cisco’s friend along with her more emotive face.

One blink of the engineer’s eyes later, and Iris prime was engulfed in Barry prime’s hug, causing everyone to either aww—Cisco and Caitlin—or look away—Iris and Savitar.

Eventually, Caitlin put her stun gun away after with an audible sigh, and Iris swiftly sheathed hers in the holster strapped at her shoulder.

“You’re a cop?” Savitar asked her out of nowhere.

“Ex-cop,” Iris replied with a confused frown, and Cisco’s own eyebrows dipped as Iris prime looked back with a gasp before slapping her Barry’s shoulder.

“Ow!” Barry prime complained loudly, but everyone in the room knew that the hit hadn’t hurt much.

Apparently Barry and Iris were the same pair of dorks in love on Earth 1 as they were on this earth.

“See? Her Barry probably supported her career as a cop!” Iris prime whined as she pulled away from Barry prime’s embrace, but let him hold her arms. “If you’d backed me up when I asked you…”

“I think we have more important problems to discuss than whatever you two are talking about,” Iris chided as she took a seat by Cisco’s flat screen. “Now there are three of you stuck here without powers.”

Iris prime’s eyes widened—yep, definitely more expressive, like back before the whole world had turned against metas.

“You have powers?” Iris prime asked in a whisper.

“Don’t answer that,” both Barry primes said as Iris opened her mouth.

“No one has powers here, _that’s_ the problem,” the P.I. pointed out, her eyes glaring at the three newbies. “The only machine that could’ve helped you return home is being kept at some location I still haven’t identified.

She turned her glare at Cisco, and okay, he deserved that. 

Not so much the broken fibula he got from breaking into the former location of the trans-dimensional gate, but Caitlin had promised that she’d fixed him.

“Well, we were thinking of helping you take down one of the local routers of the dampening-signal to get our powers back,” Savitar said, his eyes fixed on Iris—not Iris prime, Iris herself.

His plan seemed to surprise Allen prime but not Iris prime.

“Did Cisco tell you before I got to the breach room?” she asked Savitar.

“No, but I guessed that it was the only viable solution,” the time remnant replied with a shrug. “Well, the only one he could trust me to help you carry out. You’re smart, but not a mechanical engineer. Since there was no guarantee that Earth 51 Cisco wouldn’t be another Reverb, it had to be something I could understand.”

“We’re Earth 51, huh?” Cisco reflected out loud as he approached his screen, Iris vacating the seat for him. “Also, _Reverb_ ? Bad name, _Vibe_ ’s much better.”

“We already tried to switch off the routers,” Caitlin informed the visitors as she took a spot by his left shoulder, facing the intruders.

Cisco made a mental note to later kiss his girlfriend thank you for always having his back.

“Here,” he said as he pulled a scan of the optical fiber network of Central City.

“Three routers relay the meta-dampening system,” he commented as he pointed at the three spots. “When you switch off one router, the other two compensate for its inactivity.”

“So, turn off all three?” Barry prime suggested, and Cisco gave him a pass for showing that he knew that the solution seemed too obvious.

“They’re heavily guarded,” Iris chimed in. “Two metahuman units each, one patrolling the perimeter, another inside the building where the routers are located.”

“Damn,” Barry prime reacted.

He’d been arrested by a metahuman unit, so he seemed somehow aware somehow of the risks.

“To make matters worse,” Cisco added as he brought up the energetic scan of the building of the router in West Central City. “Since the time our Barry turned off one of the routers remotely, they connected all three to not one, but _two_ back-up generators.”

Silence descended on the group, and Cisco dropped his ear on the hand Caitlin put on his shoulder for comfort.

“There’s always another way,” Barry prime said.

Nope, it was Savitar who said it. He was towering behind Iris, while Barry prime was gaping at him, his arms possessively around Iris prime.

“Savitar’s right,” Iris prime said, ignoring the betrayed look her Barry gave her. “And knowing _you_ , Cisco, you already have the start of that alternative plan, but you don’t wanna share it because it’s dangerous.”

The clack of Iris’ heels resonated before the only door in and out of the lab opened and closed.

Yep, she’d left. Totally predictable.

“What did I say?” Iris prime asked, frowning at Cisco and Caitlin.

“That dangerous plan is probably related to the mission that killed her Barry Allen,” Savitar answered insightfully, his eyes on the door for a few heartbeats before they turned towards Cisco. “Am I right?”

No offense to Barry prime, but this time remnant was more like the real Barry than his original copy. There was something about his eyes that intimated that he was more mature than Barry prime, and not just from being older.

“Yeah,” Cisco replied. “In my defense, I hadn’t told anyone about it, Barry looked through my drive and made the unilateral decision to carry out the plan.”

“Which was?” Barry prime asked.

“Please start from the beginning so I’m not left out of the loop,” Iris prime requested.

She looked upset—Duh, she’d just heard that her doppelgänger had lost her other half—and was squeezing one of Barry prime’s arms with…

“Is that an engagement ring?” the engineer stupidly asked.

Caitlin sighed quietly as Savitar rolled his eyes. 

“Yeah,” Iris prime replied anyway with a shy smile. “We haven’t set a date yet, we’ve been...Busy.”

“Our Barry proposed the day they activated the global power-dampening signal,” Caitlin told the doppelgängers. “I can’t believe it’s been two years. So much has changed since.”

“They never got married,” Cisco felt compelled to add. “If you guys think _you’re_ busy on your earth, imagine trying to stop evil speedsters _without_ powers _while_ escaping the cops who are making you pass for villains.”

“Stop speedsters? So the meta-dampening signal...” Barry prime started.

“Is actually a dark-matter cancelling signal?” Savitar finished, wordlessly asking confirmation from Cisco, who nodded. “That’s why that Lady Kobra is still a threat?”

“Kobra, Lady Kobra’s boyfriend, stole Barry’s speed force and gave it to them both,” Caitlin explained. “Their powers never got cancelled since they didn’t get them from the particle accelerator explosion. For a few scary days everyone thought that Kobra was the Flash who’d gone rogue. That really pushed the anti-meta agenda forward.”

“Oh God,” Iris prime whispered, horrified.

“That’s why Barry changed his name to the Chemist,” Barry prime guessed.

“Yep, though eventually the cops figured out that we were the same _Team_ Flash,” Cisco recounted. “Because that’s when they realized that it was not just the Chemist and N, who until then had been the only ones to go out in the field. The two of them had been able to handle all the bad guys because their day jobs were already helping them fight crime anyway.”

“Barry too?” Barry prime asked, surprised. 

“Well, he was a CSI,” the engineer started, relieved to see Barry prime nod that he had the same job, “but he was more hands on than the others, getting a pass everywhere because he was Detective West's other half. He knew how to fight since Joe taught him when he also taught Iris… Wait, so neither of you is an MMA fighter?"

The twin blinks he got were answer enough. Cisco wasn't too happy that this was one of the major differences setting these two apart from his best friends.

“Well, Barry and Iris are—were— _the_ power couple of Central City since they got famous for winning the junior MMA national championship in high school,” he told the West-Allen doppelgängers. “Instead of getting paid stupid amounts of money for winning medals and trophies, they used those crazy fighting skills—among their other skills—to fight crime and protect people. When the particle accelerator exploded, they stepped up to create the first meta-human unit of CCPD with Joe’s green light and Wells’ tech—that’s when we teamed up— and kept on protecting the city even when they clocked out. It’s revolting that their efforts had the opposite effect of what they’d hoped to achieve.” 

“Barry mostly wanted to get revenge from Lady Kobra,” Caitlin recounted, bringing everyone back on track. “She’s the one responsible for Joe’s death.”

Cisco squeezed Caitlin’s hand, which was still on his shoulder. He also gave her a grateful smile.

Caitlin had never been an official member of Team Flash. In fact, she had peaced out of the meta-human world the day of Ronnie’s funerals. 

Firestorm had been a valuable member of Team Flash, though his fire powers had caused more fear than reassurance in Central City. His popularity had only gone up after he’d stopped Caitlin’s meta alter ego, Crystal Frost. 

For a whole year, Caitlin had been away from all the action, and had been Cisco’s only sense of normalcy. They’d let their long-time friendship organically morphed into romance.

Cisco felt bad that Caitlin had felt compelled to join him and Iris when Barry’s identity was revealed, but he was mighty glad for it because without her, Iris’ identity would’ve been easily outed too. Even Caitlin impersonating Twain/N had not been enough for Iris to be cleared of the heavy (rightful) suspicions against her. Iris had to leave the police to show that it wasn’t her law enforcement connections that allowed the thief to never get caught.

Until last week, it had been Caitlin who had donned N’s costume every time she stole from Tannhauser Industries, because that was the only place Caitlin could steal from without getting caught. 

Eddie Thawne thought that he’d become better at stopping N, but in reality he’d only had a chance because last week it had been Iris who’d gone to Tannhauser HQ for the first time, without Cisco in her ear to guide her since he was still hospitalized under Caitlin’s supervision. She’d probably been distracted worrying about him too. Captain Pretty Boy, as Iris called him, had simply been lucky to surprise her on a bad day.

“Sorry,” Iris prime sniffed before burying her face into Barry prime’s chest to cry.

If only their Iris could let herself cry too. But maybe Iris prime was able to do that because she had her Barry next to her, so she didn’t feel the need to act all tough.

“Do you know where Lady Kobra is now?” Savitar asked, the only one of the three looking unaffected by the tragic story of Cisco’s friends.

“Same place she was a month ago, I think,” Cisco replied. “But she’s got a whole bunch of minions who’d stop anyone looking for her. It’s even more dangerous than getting to the router.”

“Wait, why would going to Lady Kobra solve the router problem in the first place?” Iris prime asked as she wiped her tears.

“Because the stolen speed force can generate enough energy to cause a city-wide blackout that would deplete even the back up generators,” Savitar replied, looking at Cisco. “You got a speed force syphon, right?”

“Aye captain,” Quantum replied without thinking, then winced. “I mean, yeah, Barry Allen’s time remnant from another Earth. Sorry, you’re both very similar to our Barry. Iris is the odd one out.”

Weirdly, both Barry prime and Savitar winced, and Caitlin’s hand swatted at him.

“What? What did I say?” the engineer asked the room.

“If the police hunts the Chemist like a common criminal,” Savitar said without acknowledging his question, “does it mean that other criminals respect Barry Allen?”

“They fear him rather than respect him,” Cisco corrected, narrowing his eyes at the time remnant. 

“Especially now that the rumors of his return is spreading like wildfire,” Caitlin added. “After all the noise the police made about killing him, it’s going to boost his reputation.”

“Wasn’t it Lady Kobra who killed him?” Iris prime asked with a frown.

“She did, after the cops wounded him,” Cisco explained. “We still don’t know whose unit that was. Definitely not Thawne’s or Spivot’s, their people only use stun guns.”

“Excuse me?” Iris prime almost shouted before reining herself in. “Thawne and Spivot, as in Detectives Eddie Thawne and Patty Spivot?”

“They’re not the Eddie and Patty you know,” Savitar warned her, while Barry prime hid his face behind his hand.

“Is there a story we’re supposed to know here?” Cisco demanded. 

He didn’t want to have whatever plan Savitar was coming up with get sabotaged by not-meta-not-even-a-cop Iris because she was friends with the doppelgängers of Team Flash’s most steadfast enemies on her earth.

“Patty is Barry’s ex on our Earth,” Iris prime informed as she looked down at her feet. “And, umm...Eddie, I—Eddie was my fiance. But he died! But he was my—you know.”

Cisco couldn’t decide if he was more mind-blown by the fact that this Iris West had actually been with a man other than Barry, or by the fact that an Iris West could get so flustered or fidgety.

Not that he’d never caught his world’s Iris West being flustered and fidgety. He’d had the misfortune of catching Barry and Iris in a compromising position once, and that had gotten both of them flustered and fidgety. But it would’ve gotten anyone flustered and fidgety.

Here, Iris prime was the only one getting flustered and fidgety. Barry prime was quiet and kinda detached from everything. He was probably jealous of the dead fiance, but Cisco couldn't compare his expression to anything from his best friend because his best friend had never expressed serious jealousy.

“Oh, that’s actually not so far-fetched from what happened here,” Caitlin claimed hesitantly, her gaze oscillating between Savitar and Iris prime—Barry prime wasn’t even looking at her.

“Excuse me, what?” Cisco exclaimed. “That’s impossible.”

As in, Earth turning clockwise kind of impossible. Barry and Iris had been an item since the playground and no one had ever dared put themselves between them because they’d been the one true pair of cool kids who were liked by anyone who wasn’t a salty hater. Cisco had only known them for five years, but he had been kinda—read: very much so—starstruck by them and had learned to know as much as they had been willing to share about them.

“You were too drunk that night at the charity ball to notice,” Caitlin told him. “Before Wells officially introduced us to Barry and Iris, remember? Right, _drunk_. Anyway, Barry arrived late as usual, and kept being distracted by Spivot. All the while then newly transferred detective Thawne had been unsuccessfully hitting on Iris. Or maybe he hadn’t, but that’s what it looked like to me. Iris has never said anything about that night, and it’s obvious that she’s ever only had eyes for Barry. It’s just—I’ve always thought that’s the reason why she hates his guts so much, and that he always goes to her to get intel on criminals he can’t catch.” 

“No way,” Cisco commented. “I always thought that Iris and Thawne met on a common investigation after she became a P.I., and that he pissed her off because he didn’t recognize her. Not saying that Iris is entitled, but you know, even _I_ feel insulted when people don’t kowtow to her. She’s _Iris West,_ and he talks to her like she’s the precinct’s receptionist or something.”

Cisco noted the opposite reactions the two Barry primes had at his words: Savitar nodded minutely in agreement, but Barry prime frowned while rubbing a thumb to Iris prime’s left hand—her engagement ring.

As for Iris prime herself, she seemed deep in thought, and for once she reminded him of his Iris, or rather Twain, as the team called her when she was in vigilante mode, plotting mischief or reviewing a rescue mission.

“Did you say that Eddie’s the leader of a meta-human unit?” Iris’ doppelgänger asked quietly.

From their synchronous sighs, Barry prime and Savitar seemed to agree with Cisco’s deliberation: plotting mischief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *In Chapter 5, Savitar told Iris that Barry's memories don't transfer to him when Barry isn't on Earth 1, where they're both from (going off Harry's "different earths different timelines" comment). I think being on the same earth, therefore in the same timeline again, is a reasonable roundabout way to restore their connection. Maybe nobody cares about that detail, but I had to put it out there.
> 
> I still couldn't sneak in enough KillerVibe (nor WestAllen) moments, so next chapter will be a deviation from the plot to get some much needed romance and more digestible exposition. What kind of shipper would I be if I didn't give my ships time to sail on a romantic cruise?


	8. /SPINOFF/ Another Love—Cisco(Quantum)/Savitar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What I promised, kinda.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a very self-indulgent chapter that I whipped up at 3 AM because I needed to get away from my own plot asap, the past chapters have been kinda heavy. I hope that it's a fun read, but it's not really part of the story.
> 
> There's nothing explicit, I don't have the skill for that, but there's a bit of "sensuality" (comment if you get this reference!) and a bit of crack so I didn't keep everyone strictly in character. Check out the end notes for specific warnings. Hopefully I edited the chapter sufficiently enough that it makes sense. Let me know what you think!

“This is exactly why we swore not to mess with time travel or world crossovers,” Iris commented as she jerked out the flash drive from the central unit of her desktop.

Cisco extended his hand towards her and wiggled his fingers, satisfied to see Iris roll her eyes at him fondly before throwing the mobile storage device in the air. It perfectly landed in the center of Cisco’s palm.

Iris’ old desktop used to be Barry’s, which was the only reason why the 2002 model was still kicking. The CSI had been a decent engineer and programmer, self-teaching himself in his spare time. The few times Cisco would be reminded that Barry was actually a biochemist were when the CSI would borrow Cait’s tech to run some biological testing that took forever on the CCPD equipment. 

Now that Barry was gone, it was up to Cisco to keep that computer alive. All Central City thought that Cisco and Iris had become close friends after Barry's death so it was just fine for him to stop by Iris’ P.I. office. He had to update her on the ideas he and Cait had discussed with the Earth 1 trio in person because she was ignoring his calls, so he decided to open two breaches with one hand by also updating the system of the ancient machine.

“Their plan isn’t too bad, you must admit it,” the engineer argued as he pocketed his flash drive. “Getting the cops to take down Lady Kobra for us? It’s a zero risk mission.”

“That Iris won’t be able to pull it off,” Iris objected. “There’s no way Thawne would share such sensitive information with me.”

Cisco wasn’t so sure. Now that he was aware of Thawne’s crush on Iris, the captain’s behavior made sense. He was always trying to trade info with Iris, or asking for tips on how to interrogate criminals from District 4, where the name Iris West was a password to open both the right and wrong doors.

“Are you volunteering to do it yourself?” the engineer inquired. “Because I doubt that Barry prime or Savitar will let her get in a mile radius from Thawne.”

It had been entertaining to see Iris prime argue the merits of her idea while the two Barrys from Earth 1 tried not to agree on their distaste for it. Well, Barry had been pretty straightforward objecting to Iris’ point, it was Savitar who’s opinion had been ambiguous.

Iris sighed loudly and swept her long hair out of her face and neck.

That gesture meant that she had either been forced to kick someone's ass or, as Barry had told Cisco pretty early in their friendship, that she was considering following up with a reckless idea; 

“Where are those three even staying for the night?” the P.I. asked as she clicked her computer to sleep and got on her feet to straighten the paper stacks threatening to tip off the edge of her desk.

“Cait’s studio,” Cisco informed her as he fell in steps with her to exit the office. “Figured that it would keep them put, since they can’t go outside without drawing attention. We don’t trust them not to try anything if we left them at the lab.”

It had taken some time, and eventually Iris prime’s intervention to convince Savitar to bunk at Cait’s tiny apartment.

The medical doctor had lived there for a few months after Ronnie’s death, and it had taken both Cisco and Carla to get her to find a more comfortable abode—which ended up being a whole damn building at the West branch of Tannhauser’s Industries. In addition to the secret lab, the building had three floors with several suites, which Cisco wished they had back when they first created Team Flash. 

Cisco himself still had his two bedrooms, where he was headed with Caitlin. The couple rarely used the apartments in the CS building because it was still Cait’s workplace and she tried to get as much normalcy in her life as she could, especially since joining Team Flash.

Iris and Cisco exited the building of Iris’ office, which was only three blocks from her apartment, so as usual she declined Caitlin’s offer to drive her there in her unregistered SUV—full of hidden compartments carrying first aid kits, changes of clothes, stun guns and speed force syphon disks.

“She didn’t say anything about me not coming up, did she?” the brunette asked as she eyed Iris taking a shortcut across the small park.

“Cait, she knows that you can’t,” Cisco reassured as he buckled up. “I know she doesn’t say it often enough, but she’s truly grateful for your help in keeping her identity secret.”

“Okay,” his girlfriend said with a shy nod before driving them to his place.

After a perfunctory check of the camera feed and other data from his security system, Cisco headed to the kitchen to take out Caitlin’s meal-prepped quinoa salad and reheat some Ajiaco from the new place on Infantino for himself.

He took out a head of lettuce to toss into a vinaigrette so that his health freak of a girlfriend wouldn’t nag him about eating his greens.

Cisco had expected Cait to be taking a shower, which was why he stared at her dumbly at her lifted ass as he stepped into the living room to enjoy his dinner

“Errr...Didn’t you hit the treadmill this morning?” he slowly asked as he placed his soup on the coffee table and sat on the side armchair instead of the sofa since Caitlin was doing yoga right in front of it.

“I’m just—just stretching,” the lithe woman assured as she smoothly transition from a downward dog to a plank, then lowered herself down onto her mat—when had she brought that over?

Cisco let himself get hypnotized by his girlfriend’s graceful movements as he munched on his lettuce. Sometimes it still felt inappropriate for him to ogle Ronnie’s fiancée, but  _ fuck _ , she was hot. And smart and kind, but right now he was admiring the work of art that was her body.

When she stayed in child’s pose for more than five minutes, the engineer thought she’d fallen asleep. That had happened to him one of the few times she had convince him to join on her practice.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have left Earth 1 Iris with the two Barrys,” Cait’s voice came muffled, her head still rested on her mat between her stretched arms.

“What? Oh,” Cisco said as he blinked at her rolling to sit on her heels. “Nah, they’ll be fine. They need to talk out the uncomfortable tension between them anyway. I don’t want their drama to bite us in the ass later. Speaking of asses, have I told you lately how fantastic yours look?”

“Francisco Ramon!” Caitlin chided fondly before giggling.

Cisco loved hearing Caitlin giggle. She was reserved and proper in public. Even among friends her laughs were contained, something Cisco hadn’t realized until he started dating her. He’d known her for almost ten years, but was still getting to know all the facets of her brilliant personality.

Which was why it felt like a gift to see her relax like this.

“Hey,” Cait said quietly as she turned around to sit cross-legged in front of him. “This could be it. After two years, you could finally get your powers back.”

To be honest, Cisco didn’t dare hope for the best. Maybe the blackout wouldn’t last long enough for him to disable all three routers, but so what? They had two speedsters on their team now, they could just fry the whole optic fibre cable network.

Oh, but that would mean that every meta in Central City would get their powers back.

“I hope that Iron Heights still carry my meta-cuffs,” he reflected out loud, and was about to reach for his phone to set a memo to do an inventory when Caitlin’s delicate hand swiped up his arm to end on his shoulder.

“If not you can always breach the whole personnel to safety while Twain and the guys from Earth 1 take care of the prisoners” the doctor suggested as she brought her other hand to settle at the back of his neck and smiled at him seductively.

“Or send them a whole case of meta-cuffs and let them figure things out themselves since they never wanted our help in the first place,” Cisco proposed as he set his bowl of lettuce on the floor at the back of the armchair.

He briefly closed his eyes to savor the shiver elicited by Caitlin’s fingertips rubbing at his scalp, but made sure to re-establish eye contact—they were going to...Right?

“I might have lettuce stuck in my teeth,” he warned her as she leaned towards him, her head tilting to the side.

She stopped a few inches from him, close enough that the heat of her flushed cheeks diffused into his pores. Her breath ricocheted across his lips as she giggled again.

“Well, that iceberg lettuce you insist on buying is over ninety-five percent water,” she informed him before giving a quick, soft peck on the lips. “No need to brush your teeth.”

That’s all the permission Cisco needed to get onboard with the impromptu make-out session.

He couldn’t get all in from the start, because he was a messy kisser when he was too enthusiastic. So he gently grabbed Caitlin’s long neck with both hands, slipping his fingers into the hair at the base of her skull so he could delicately tilt her head further down to prevent their noses from bumping.

Her lips tasted slightly salty, probably from the light sweat she worked with her yoga. He nipped them softly with his own, pulled away from her half to tease her half to take a deep breath without snorting into her face, and smiled into the forceful kiss she smacked on him in her impatience.

Their positions weren’t the most conducive for kissing long-term, so Cisco gladly let Caitlin pull him with her onto her yoga mat.

“Yoga sex, huh? Kinky,” he joked when she rid him of his shirt and undershirt at once—those doctor’s hands were precise, okay—and started running her thumb along the waistband of his jeans.

“Put that ridiculous mouth of yours to better use, Cisco,” Caitlin ordered in a breathless voice because, hello, mechanical engineer here, his tactile skills weren’t too shabby either.

The yoga mat was too thin to provide sufficient cushioning, so they ended up migrating to Cisco’s room after he kissed her enthusiastically between her legs.

* * *

“Hey,” Barry said as he propped himself against the small kitchen counter, hands in his pockets.

Savitar was offended knowing that he’d look just as awkward in that position.

“You know that you’ll get a hangover, right?” his past-self said as he pointed at his drink with his chin.

Savitar twirled the glass of brandy, making the ice cubes clink in the amber liquid.

He was impressed that Caitlin had only consumed one finger of it, she certainly had reasons to empty the whole bottle. This earth was actually worse than any of the others he’d been to.

“Are you going to ignore me the whole time?” Barry asked, impatience already slipping in his voice.

He would’ve lost his sanity very quickly in that speed force prison.

Not like Savitar could claim to be sane himself. He was definitely out of his mind, being on an Earth were his powers were cancelled—even his newly acquired speed force, probably because it had already merged with the speed force he generated as a meta—stuck in a tiny studio with Barry and Iris, who had been kissing for ten minutes in Caitlin’s bedroom until Barry remembered that his memories transferred to him.

“Savitar,” his past-self tried again, in a surprisingly calmer voice.

“Speak, it’s not like I could ignore what comes out of your mouth, it gets stuck in my head,” he pointed out before taking a sip of the brandy.

He definitely hadn’t remembered how potent liquor was. After spending so long without so much of a drop of alcohol, he had the tolerance of a pre-teen.

So much for being a god.

“Thank you,” Barry whispered, and Savitar couldn’t help looking at him.

His past-self was staring, gratitude clear in his teary eyes.

“I didn’t do it for you,” Savitar felt compelled to specified.

“I know, but,” Barry started, paused to sniff away his tears, and wiped them when they fell anyway. “Thank you,” he simply repeated.

An uncomfortable silence took over the kitchenette, and Savitar accidentally took a big sip of the brandy. He coughed back half of it.

“Seriously, brandy? You—we can’t hold our liquor,” Barry commented with a quiet chuckle. “Remember that time when Joe—”

“What makes you think that I want to go down memory lane with you?” Savitar cut him off. “Just because I saved Iris doesn’t mean I want to be friends, Barry.”

“You’re me, we don’t need to be friends,” his past-self had the gall to reply.

“ _ If _ I were you, Iris would still be dead,” Savitar spat as he shot to his feet, pleased to see Barry startling. “You were incapable of protecting her.”

“From my future self? Yeah that was tricky!” Barry countered, his voice raising. “You said it yourself, you’d be planning it for centuries…”

“All you had to do was kill me, and the problem would’ve been solved,” Savitar pointed out as he stepped to the sink to dump the rest of the drink.

“You know that I don’t kill people,” Barry argued. “I certainly couldn’t kill my own time remnant! I’m not  _ Zoom _ !”

“Your time remnant or Iris,” Savitar said as he turned to face his past-self again. “That’s not a difficult choice, is it?”

“There was another way,” Barry reminded him. “The speed force bazooka…”

Savitar couldn’t help laughing. Iris definitely could hear him from the other side of the small apartment, but he didn’t care.

“A complex piece of tech that Tracy Brand wasn’t supposed to perfect until four years later,” he told Barry. “You of all people should be aware of how much can change in four years. Look at you and Iris. You didn’t even have the guts to tell her your feelings four years ago, and now you’re going to  _ marry her _ .”

His voice had cracked on the last two words, but Barry didn’t comment on it. He just stared at him, and for what felt like hours Savitar stared back.

“You could’ve kept her hidden, she would’ve eventually chosen you,” Barry said so quietly that Savitar might not have heard him without the memory feedback-loop, which was irritatingly uncontrollable without his powers.

At least images weren’t flashing in his head anymore. The memories were just there, as easily accessible as a favorite playlist on an iPod.

“No she wouldn’t have,” Savitar denied after snorting at the ridiculous idea.

An idea he’d had himself, a dream he’d cherished for so long, but which had been destroyed the moment he’d realized that Iris would've rather broken her neck climbing down a building on a foreign earth than stay with him.

“She wanted  _ her _ Barry Allen,” he quoted with a shrug. “She would’ve never chosen me.”

“You  _ are _ Barry Allen,” Barry insisted as he stepped towards him.

“No I’m  _ not  _ !” Savitar shouted, making his past-self step back. “How many times do I have to repeat it for you to understand? Everyone else gets it!”

“They’re not me,” Barry pointed out, his voice matching his in volume. “They’re not us! They don’t know how it feels to lose everyone…”

“What do  _ you _ know about losing everyone, huh?” Savitar countered, blinking in surprise when his palm connected with Barry’s covered chest, pushing him against the counter.

“You’re really asking?” Barry talked back as he got into Savitar’s space. “You’re the one who made me believe that Iris was dead for sixteen days…”

“You still had Joe!” Savitar reminded the ungrateful bastard as he gripped the collar of his t-shirt, “and Team Flash! You had your job, a roof above your head!  _ I _ had nothing! I  _ was _ nothing, just a disposable time remnant!”

“You’re not disposable!” Barry claimed loudly as he gripped Savitar’s wrist. “You’re not to me, okay? I’m not my future self—”

“Evidently, you’re your present self, great logic, Barry,” Savitar drawled.

“You know what I mean,” Barry insisted as he pulled Savitar’s hand from his shirt, but didn’t let go. “You have my memories, compare it to your old ones. I didn’t abandon Joe or Team Flash.”

“Yes you did,” Savitar denied, feeling his arm shake in Barry’s hand. “You got stuck on this god-forsaken planet because, instead of watching over Central City and helping Harry and Cisco with the inter-dimensional quantum sonar, you went earth-hopping looking for me.”

Barry had nothing to say to that for a while. He repeatedly opened his mouth only to close it.

“I admit,” he finally said while looking down at their linked limbs, “that at first I only wanted to drag you back to Earth 1 and lock you up until we could send you back into the Speed Force.”

Then Barry looked into Savitar’s eyes with a glint the older of the two couldn’t de-cypher, though he had his suspicions. 

“Then I thought that I could convince you to voluntarily replace Jay,” Barry said quietly.

“Fuck you, Barry,” Savitar replied not as quietly as he wrenched out his arm from Barry’s grip.

“ _Oh my God_ , please take that back, I don’t need that kind of fantasies in my head,” Iris’ voice said on the other side of the kitchen.

“Iris,” they both called out as they stared at her with wide, apologetic eyes.

Iris stood there, mouth slightly agape.

She’d changed into pajamas Savitar guessed she’d borrowed from Earth 51 Caitlin. Apparently she had used the other woman’s flat iron too, since her hair was finally straight, prettily framing her bare face and falling over her shoulders.

Savitar frowned at the flush on her cheeks, which he only understood when her words finally registered as he noted that her gaze kept oscillating between him and Barry.

“You can’t be serious,” he chided just as Barry whined “are you kidding me!”

“What? It’s not like I’m going to ask you two to—”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Savitar begged her, his own face aflame with horrifying embarrassment at the implications of her words.

He turned towards Barry, expecting him to shame her dirty mind, but Barry was actually looking back and forth between him and Iris.

“What the fuck?” Savitar cursed again, incredulous.

Was he actually still trapped in the Speed Force, and this was a long dream that was turning into a nightmare?

“You two are insane,” Savitar told them both, and now there was this bizarre three-way—oh, great—staring contest going on.

“Hey, better my own future time remnant than this earth’s Eddie Thawne,” Barry joked with a maniac laugh.

“Don’t you bring the name of my dead former fiancé when I’m imagining two Barry Allens in my bed,” Iris pleaded as she rubbed her fingers over her temples, “my bad, one Barry Allen and one Savitar,” she quickly corrected herself.

“Right now it’s Caitlin’s doppelgänger’s bed,” Barry pointed out, “so no thank you!”

“ _ That’s _ your objection, that it’s the wrong bed?” Savitar couldn’t help asking.

“It’s a twin, man, I barely fit,” Barry actually complained as he crossed his arms and leaned against the counter. “The couch is worse. I know we just met, but they could’ve given us better accommodations.”

“Well, I fit perfectly in that bed, so I’m going to sleep,” Iris announced as she stepped closer to the two men and lifted herself on her tiptoes to give a languorous kiss to Barry.

Savitar knew, not because he had looked, but because it was now part of his memories.

He sighed audibly and sat back onto the chair at the small dining table, hearing the breathy “good night, Iris,” Barry wished her.

Since Barry was probably going to take the couch, Savitar got comfortable on that chair, stretching his legs and letting his head drop backward.

With his eyes closed, he could actually keep Barry’s memories at bay, put them in the background of his own.

He almost yelped at the unexpected grab of his hair, managing to only let out a sudden exhale. He didn’t manage to contain the flush spreading from his scalp to his—thankfully covered—chest.

“What?” he grumbled at Iris after blinking his eyes open.

"Goodnight to you too," she wished him with a smile before lowering her head to kiss his cheek.

Without thinking, Savitar surged back up to sit tall and meet her halfway, tilting his head to the side at the last moment to paste his lips to hers. He mirrored her action by grabbing the hair against her skull to hold her in place as he deepened the stolen kiss.

He heard her moan of surprise and pleasure with his own ears; teased her plush lips with his own; rubbed his own thumb against her jaw; licked at the seam of her lips with his own tongue; gazed at her dreamy face with his own eyes when she jerked her face from him - though not too far, since his hand was still in her hair. 

Making a memory of kissing Iris with his own body after centuries of loneliness was worth everything Savitar had been through to save her.

“Don’t forget to wrap your hair,” he tried to say nonchalantly as he smoothed out her tresses, but his voice came out even breathier than Barry’s had been a couple minutes ago.

“Yeah, umm—I won’t,” Iris stuttered as she walked backwards out of the kitchen, her blush intensifying when she glanced at Barry before she scampered off to the bedroom.

Savitar looked back at Barry, his smug smile faltering when he didn’t detect any anger in Barry's wide eyes.

“What?” his past-self asked absent-mindedly while he rubbed a hand to the back of his neck. “I’m not gonna get jealous of myself, that’s stupid."

Savitar wasn’t going to argue with him on that point.

He was too busy marveling at the fact that he actually had two memories of that kiss. Barry's point of view wasn't bad at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning in this chapter for:
> 
> Mention of sex between Earth 51 Cisco and Caitlin
> 
> Savitar stealing a kiss from Iris.
> 
> The next chapters will be serious again, I hope that the deviation was okay. Kudos and comments are always welcome!


	9. Another Confession—Iris/Barry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iris helps her doppelganger process her grief over Earth 51 Barry; Barry and Savitar have a talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive! I re-wrote this chapter so many times, it was time to let it go. Note that I've classified last chapter a spin-off of sorts. Pretend that this is the real Chapter 8.
> 
> Disclaimer: Please don't expect this chapter to handle grief appropriately. This is a fanfic about a sci-fi show. I'm as tactless about grief in this chapter as the show was about H.R.'s death.

Iris Ann West was not a wimp by any stretch of the imagination. She’d been doing boxing since she was six years old, and she hit the treadmill of her lousy gym three times a week. She might not have powers, but she’d taken down a fair number of villains and criminals over the years with her own strength and wits.

Next to Earth 51 Iris West though, Iris did feel like a wimp.

The P.I. had started mixed martial arts at ten years old, and had won a championship in high school. She used every single part of her body to kick ass, sometimes without having her feet on the ground. She had the flexibility and explosive power of an acrobat, and the stealth of a freaking ninja.

Naturally, she wiped the floor under Barry Iris on their first day of training.

“Even Cisco’s gadgets won’t help you if you can’t pass this obstacle test,” Twain said as she elegantly towelled her face—she was sweating, but barely.

Iris was sitting on a bench next to Barry, who was icing a shoulder. 

“Make sure to go to the sauna or take a hot bath, not a shower,” the P.I. instructed as she grabbed both ends of her towel around her neck. “And do a few rounds of sun salutation before bed. That should minimize your muscle soreness tomorrow. We can’t afford to take rest days”

“I’m already sore,” Barry mumbled as he switched the ice bag to his neck.

He went a bit pale when Nessir glared at him—which made his skin look normal, because he’d been red since their warmup—and swallowed audibly before looking away

Iris would’ve laughed at her un-athletic fiancé had the dark gaze of her doppelgänger not irritated her.

Twain was very professional when sparring with Iris herself, giving her helpful tips on how to move and how to use momentum to boost the strength of her hits, but she was clearly harder on Barry.

Iris could imagine that her Earth 51 counterpart had difficulties telling Barry apart from her deceased partner, but she still was irked at the outlaw’s harsh treatment.

Iris understood her doppelgänger grief, she truly did, but she wasn’t going to let her fiancé get bruised because Twain refused to deal with her grief and move on.

“Could you actually show me where the sauna is?” Iris asked as she stood up from the bench, gently shaking her head when Barry looked ready to stand up too.

He had been very clingy ever since they’d reunited, which Iris didn’t mind. She hadn’t felt the whole two weeks—seventeen days now—of separation, but being on alert while she had been with Savitar had made Iris miss her fiance’s easy love and comfort.

Twain—how funny that this Iris also used this alias—led Iris to the sauna and both shed their clothes and wrapped themselves in towels before entering the steaming hot room.

Iris quickly took in the few scars that Twain’s training outfit had hidden until then, but decided against asking about them. She could imagine that Earth 51 had been rough on her doppelgänger.

“I know that he’s not him,” Nessir acknowledged right away, though she didn’t sound apologetic at all. “And I shouldn’t take my pent-up anger on your Barry…”

“But they look exactly the same, I know,” Iris completed the thought with a sympathetic nod. “Believe me, I know.”

“Savitar?” the P.I. inquired with a quick side glance.

Right, Earth 51 Cisco and Caitlin had heard the story from Barry, but N hadn’t been there to hear it. She probably had pieced some info together, though.

“He’s a time remnant,” Iris informed her, internally noticing her doppelgänger’s tactic to shift the attention on her trauma. “Barry went back in time and messed up our original timeline—well, it’s not actually the original timeline because another speedster ruined that and killed Barry’s mother…”

“Jesus,” Twain commented quietly.

“Yeah,” Iris agreed as she wiped away sweat dripping over her eyelids.

“Savitar’s actually from a future where I died,” she summarized, “and he was trapped in the Speed Force—has your Barry ever been there?” she asked to direct the attention back to her doppelgänger.

“Once,” Earth 51 Iris recalled, the tone of her voice softening.

They were sitting shoulder to shoulder in the steaming room, so Iris had to twist her torso to get a good look at the other Iris.

Twain was looking at her right hand, her eyes seemingly looking through it.

“It was only for a few days, the longest of my life at the time,” the ex-cop confessed. “He was trying to generate a surplus of speed force to overload a syphon gun that Kobra had made to steal more of his powers. One second he was running in circles, the next he was just… Gone. Had Cisco not vibed him, we would’ve thought that he’d died.”

Iris noted that her doppelgänger’s voice had turned back to being neutral and clinical.

“How did he return?” she prompted, hoping to rekindle the feelings the other Iris had experienced that day.

“I brought him back,” the P.I. recounted, her voice actually sounding awed, and Iris could relate. “I went in the Speed Force and pulled him back.”

After doing the exact same thing a year ago, Iris understood the surrealistic feeling her doppelgänger was remembering.

“From Barry's perspective he’d been there for much longer than a few days,” Twain added as she closed her hand into a fist and looked back at Iris.

“He’d felt lost in that infinite void for so long. He was exhausted and delirious by the time Cisco vibed me there,” she added, her voice wavering. “At first he thought that I was an illusion, he was convinced that we’d die alone in that place. I could’ve spared him the experience if I hadn’t wallowed in my own grief and realized that he wasn’t truly gone—”

She didn’t finish her sentence, instead she looked away and ran her right hand over her face.

As she detected the tears that her doppelgänger wiped away with that movement, Iris speculated that Twain had taken that nervous tick from her Barry. Iris herself never did that, she’d risk smearing her makeup.

“Is this why you won’t grieve him now?” Iris asked quietly. “You think that he’s still alive? Barry told me that you guys buried him yourselves…”

“I wasn’t there,” the P.I. informed her after a quiet sob.

Iris felt her own tears roll down her cheeks, her heart hurting for her doppelgänger. Although it was dim now, she also felt her grief for Eddie resurface. 

She hadn’t overcome that grief in a month, but she had gone through the stage of denial quickly.

Earth 51 Iris was clearly still in that first stage, which was alarming.

“It’s been over a month, Iris,” Iris pointed out as gently as she could. “I wouldn’t dare tell you what to do in normal circumstances, but my Barry and I are counting on you to help us get home. Can you successfully complete the mission related to your Barry’s death when you haven’t even dealt with his passing?”

“I’ve been doing this for years,” Twain pointed out defensively. “I’m good at it. Ask Kobra, I’m the one who sent him to Iron Heights.”

“I believe you, but I’d also guess that you didn’t do it alone,” Iris argued. “Even with his superpowers Barry needs someone at STAR Labs to help him out on our earth.”

“Getting Kobra was a team effort,” N admitted more calmly, “but I’m the one who managed to syphon out the speed force he had stolen. Only to have the device malfunction and break down, with no way to collect the speed force.”

Ouch. Iris guessed that the team had hoped to restore Earth 51 Barry’s powers then. That would’ve made defeating Lady Kobra much easier, and definitely less lethal.

“It’s not your fault that you couldn’t give Barry his powers back,” Iris assured her gently. “It’s not your fault that he died, either. He made his choice to face off a speedster on his own.”

“If I had tried harder to dissuade him to go,” the ex-cop argued, her voice breaking again. “But I couldn’t… I couldn’t see—past the betrayal, the anger…”

“That he’d try to do something so monumentally dangerous without even telling you,” Iris completed her doppelgänger’s thought.

Twain sharply turned her head to stare at her, her teary eyes wide with shock.

“He’s done that to you? _Your_ Barry?” the P.I. asked, sounding so much younger and vulnerable than she had in the training room less than an hour ago.

“He kept the secret that he was a speedster for _months_ ,” Iris informed her, the bitterness of days past an aftertaste on her tongue. “I figured it out on my own, which really shouldn’t have taken so long. I’m still not sure if _that_ was worse than him not telling me that he’d been in love with me for most of our lives,” she added with a scoff.

“Why would Barry need to tell you that he was in love with you,” Twain asked without any inflection, frowning at Iris’ engagement ring. “We mastered the art of non-verbal communication at sixteen.”

“That’s what I thought, until he dropped that bomb two Christmases years ago,” Iris told her as she wiped the sweat at her hairline.

“I don’t understand,” N said while wiping sweat from her neck, “it’s only been two years and a half? So what, you didn’t date until then? _I don’t understand_.”

“I guess Cisco didn’t tell you how we’re not the same ‘Gold Standard’ on our earth as you guys were,” Iris said with a hot-breath sigh. “We’re engaged now, but we’ve only been together for seven months… I was engaged before. To our world’s version of Eddie Thawne.”

The silence that took over was beyond awkward, and Iris winced upon realizing that she’d let Twain turn the conversation around once again.

“Girl, that ain’t funny,” the P.I. commented flatly. 

“Why is it so shocking?” Iris asked, feeling defensive now. “Your Thawne clearly has a thing for you.”

“Which is irrelevant, since I’ve ever only had eyes for Barry,” Twain replied, and sadness resurfaced in her voice before it completely broke as tears suddenly rolled down her cheeks. “Who was _everything_ to me... I don’t know how to _breathe_ right without him, Iris, I don’t! Yet I have to keep going somehow, make sure that he didn’t die in vain—”

“He didn’t,” Iris assured her as she grasped her doppelgänger’s hand, ignoring the uncomfortable wetness on both their skin. “And he’d want you to keep running, I know he would. But Iris, he deserves to be mourned properly, you can’t keep living like losing him didn’t happen.”

“It’s easy for you to say,” Twain said as she took her hand away. “You have _two_ of them, and apparently you came back to life? You guys are weird, I guess that’s expected when you play around with time travel and world crossovers.”

“Eddie died,” Iris revealed, Twain’s shock predictable. “So I do know about grieving someone I loved.”

“I’m sorry,” the ex-cop whispered after a few seconds of heavy silence. “I mean, I don’t know, it’s hard to feel bad for… You truly loved that man?”

“Not as much as I love Barry, as _I’ve loved_ Barry all my life, but yes I did love him,” Iris confessed. “You’re right about our lives being weird because of time travel. I… I was already with Eddie when Barry confessed his feelings for me, and I don’t know, there were all these people telling me that I was destined to marry Barry, and I—”

“You rebelled against the idea of fate,” N guessed with a smile. “I feel you on that. For a long time I didn’t want to be a cop, because everyone expected me to join dad on the force.”

Iris refrained from showing her shock at that admission. They had to stay on track, she had to push the other Iris to accept the death of Earth 51 Barry.

“MMA was more of Barry’s thing,” the ex-cop recalled. “He used to get bullied in elementary school,” at that Iris nodded, to let her know that it had been the same on their earth, “so when dad asked him one day if he wanted to try training with me, he jumped on the opportunity to get stronger. He’s the one who signed me up for our first tournament in high school, telling me that I shouldn’t waste my talent even if I didn’t want to use them to fight crime.”

Iris’ heart constricted as she saw her doppelgänger smile at the memory of her life partner. 

“I hated the hours of training back then,” Twain admitted with a short laugh. “I hadn’t mastered doing my hair, so it was cumbersome. But Barry made it worth it. We didn’t have much time to train together, but when we did, he’d always tell me how inspirational I was, how if I went pro I’d be a role model for so many other girls, how I was born to do good, whatever I wanted to do in life. How I inspired him to be better, when really it was the other way around. Barry also pushed me to be the editor of the school newspaper, and I swear there’s a timeline out there in which I became a reporter after taking that journalism course in college he enrolled me in.”

“Well,” Iris offered, waving her hand at herself.

“Oh,” Nessir reacted. “I never asked, sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Iris waved off her apology, “it’s not what I ever thought about doing growing up, but Barry was right to make me take that course for my sociology requirement. I love my job, and I’m good at it. I mean, I’m an investigative reporter, it’s not too far from being a P.I., right?”

“No, it’s not,” Twain agreed with a smile before the two of them let silence take over the room once again.

As she sweated the soreness of the training away, Iris wondered if she’d helped.

Twain had shed a few tears, and admitted to missing her Barry, but that didn’t sound like enough to get her through her grief.

“Thank you,” the P.I. said as she stood up, locking eyes with Iris. “I know that I’m far from being done mourning Barry, but at least now I feel ready to do it. For him, and for myself. It’s going to take time, but I’ll get it done.”

“I can imagine that it’s hard, having Barry and Savitar around,” Iris reflected out loud. “Sorry about that. As soon as we complete the mission we’ll get out of your hair as fast as possible.”

“It’s fine,” Twain assured. “They are very similar to Barry, but they’re different enough from him that I don’t find it too difficult to look at them. But, girl, how do you tell them apart? Savitar has this… emptiness in his eyes at times, but they’re equally foolish around you.”

“Savitar’s hair is slightly longer,” Iris described, “and he always wears dark clothes. He’s supposedly four years and a few Speed Force centuries older, but you’re right, it’s difficult to tell.”

“Barry’s healing powers makes him age more slowly than normal, so four years shouldn’t account for physical difference,” Twain said.

Oh. Iris had never thought about that.

“It’s not like he won’t age at all,” Twain added immediately, sensing Iris’ shock, “but yeah, I was relieved when I found out that I had healing powers too. But black don’t crack anyway, right? Your melanin power will help you keep up.”

“We’ll see,” Iris commented as she pictured herself twenty years from now, looking much older than her husband. Ugh.

When she exited the gym floor later on, freshly showered yet still feeling exhausted from the training, Iris saw Barry walking towards the secret elevator leading to Earth 51 Caitlin’s lab. He was still drying his hair with a towel, dressed in a Tannhauser Industries grey t-shirt and sweatpants, his other hand holding a cup of cold beverage.

The building had several break rooms, and the group was lucky that Dr. Snow’s personal one was equipped with a nice kitchen full of wonderful appliances and food stuff. Iris was thinking about making herself a frappuccino.

“Hey,” she called, and frowned at Barry’s choice of refreshment. Iced tea?

“Is that iced tea?” she asked in disapproval, and rolled her eyes at Barry’s grin.

“Hey, this is just as caffeinated as the frappuccino you’re daydreaming about right now,” he pointed out.

“Yeah right,” she drawled before stealing a sip from his straw, then another as Barry didn’t get his cup away from her. “Huh, not bad, though it painfully lacks sugar.”

“I don’t need much of it now,” Barry reminded her as he stopped rubbing the towel over his hair. “It’s…weird to not feel hungry all the time,” he added more quietly with a glance at her lips.

Iris wondered if that was a request to satisfy another kind of hunger. She was a bit sexually frustrated herself from not being able to go further than kissing Barry, both of them uncomfortable with making intimate memories while Savitar was so close by.

“Wait, I shouldn’t be following you,” Iris reminded herself as they reached the elevator doors. “I can’t listen to you and Cisco 51 nerd about his gadgets without an adequate amount of caffeine in my blood.”

“Cisco 51?” he repeated in an amused tone.

“Whatever, he calls me ‘Iris Prime’,” she pointed out before stretching on her toes to drop a quick kiss on his lips. 

She turned around before she could give into the urge to deepen the kiss, only to end up facing _Barry_.

She knew it was Barry, because his hair was dry and just the right length, and he was holding two drinks, one of them the frappuccino she’d been craving.

He blinked at her then at Savitar, his eyebrows high and lips pinched.

“Oh my god,” Iris whispered as she looked back over her shoulder.

Both men were wearing grey Tannhauser Industries sweatpants and t-shirt, whereas Iris had expected Savitar to keep wearing the black clothes he’d arrived in. She hadn’t thought to inspect his hair since it was still drying.

Savitar looked just as shocked about the situation as she felt but then the realization hit him.

“You thought I was _him_ ,” the time remnant stated accusingly, narrowing his eyes at her.

Great, now Iris felt guilty for leading him on.

“We’re wearing the exact same clothes,” Barry defended Iris as he extended the arm with the frappuccino towards her. “Iced tea, huh?” he added, a mocking glint in his eyes as he seized up Savitar.

“Shut up,” the older Barry replied as he called the elevator.

“Flashpoint,” Barry simply said when Iris looked at him questioningly. 

“I’m jealous that you two have an infinite supply of inside jokes,” Iris mumbled as she took a blissful sip of her iced coffee. “By the way, what did you get?”

“A chai latte, without the insane amount of syrup,” Barry answered as they filed into the elevator.

It was a bit tight for three persons, unlike the elevator Twain had made Iris and Savitar take the other day.

“I know you’re not using your powers right now, but I can’t be the only in need of extra carbs after Twain’s training!” Iris commented.

She heard Savitar snort.

Savitar had refused to train, first to the whole team’s dismay, but to everyone’s relief he’d clear out the obstacle course and memorized the layout of the West-branch router facility within a day. Iris now had this idea of the time remnant going to the gym in the Speed Force jail.

“Man, I’m glad she told us about taking a hot bath,” Barry said as he rolled his neck and shoulders. “Twain is as ruthless as Oliver.”

“Oliver doesn’t hit you harder than necessary because you look like his dead lover,” Savitar said, bringing down an awkward silence as they exited the elevator.

“Okay, I thought I was imagining her hitting me too hard,” Barry said quietly as they approached the door to the secret lab.

“I talked to her,” Iris confessed. “She’s hurting, okay? You of all people should understand,” she chided Savitar, who stared back defiantly. 

“I can bring him back once we get our powers back,” Savitar offered off-handedly.

“Wait, wait,” Barry requested quickly, putting himself in front of both Iris and Savitar. “I can’t believe that I didn’t ask either of you, but...You actually resurrected her? I thought, I don’t know, I thought that you used some fringe science…”

Savitar’s gaze oscillated between the two of them before he wordlessly walked away, using one of the passes Earth 51 Caitlin had given them to enter her secret lab.

“Okay, that could’ve gone better,” Barry commented with a long sigh. “I don’t know how to go through him,” he added as he rubbed his hand on the back of his neck, looking down at Iris.

“If you can’t go through _yourself_ , how can I?” Iris questioned.

“You’ve always been able to make me talk,” Barry reminded her with a small smile. “Come on, he’s normal around you. Totally different from my future self in 2023, though I guess that’s not my future self anymore.”

“Alright,” Iris conceded as she walked backwards towards the door of the lab. “Let’s tackle the mission first, then I’ll see what I can do.”

“You’re the best,” Barry complimented her, and stopped her from swiping her card to the secret lab door by grabbing her wrist.

Instinctively, Iris leaned forward and up to meet him halfway for a slow kiss. She felt him smile against her lips, then lifted an eyebrow at him when he chuckled after pulling away.

“What’s so funny about kissing me, Mr. Allen?” she interrogated him.

“Nothing at all, future Mrs. West-Allen,” he answered but chuckled again all the same. “Okay, I admit, the face you made when you realized that you got the wrong me…”

“You’re not mad that I kissed him?” Iris asked, surprised.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Barry answered with a shrug of his shoulders, which rippled to Iris’ arm still linked to his. “But I spent many years being jealous of other men kissing you, Iris. Watching you kiss another version of me because you thought it _was_ me...There are worst feelings in life.”

Before Iris could argue Barry dropped a chaste kiss on her lips then guided her hand to swipe the card against the door lock.

They greeted Earth 51 Caitlin and Cisco calmly, ignoring Savitar’s sharp glare.

* * *

“You can’t avoid me forever, you know,” Barry commented as soon as Savitar exited his assigned room on one of the secret floors of the C. Snow building.

The time remnant had done a great job at disappearing from Barry’s sight whenever they weren’t conferring with Earth 51 Team Flash. Fortunately Earth 51 Caitlin was more friendly with Barry than Savitar, and had gladly told him which room Savitar was occupying.

Presently, Savitar was blinking at him, as if he was actually surprised to see Barry there.

“Wait, you didn’t see me coming?” Barry questioned as he leaned away from the wall facing the door.

“I don’t spend every waking second revisiting your memories,” Savitar informed him as he closed the door and leaned against it. “What do you want?”

Barry took a deep breath. He’d been waiting for this moment for months.

“I’m sorry,” he said firmly, and took a step forward when Savitar rolled his eyes dismissively. “I’m sorry for pulling you away from your own time, for using you as a means to an end, for leaving you alone when you were already grieving Iris—”

“You do realize that you’ll never get to do that, right?” the faster speedster pointed out. “That happened in a future that doesn’t belong to the current timeline anymore.”

Barry was aware of that, but he’d just figured out something else.

“You fixed other things,” he thought out loud. “Wally being a speedster, Caitlin leaving the team… It wasn’t just about Iris. Thank you.”

“Everything I did was for Iris,” Savitar objected as he crossed his arms over his chest. “I used Wally’s desire for superpowers to get out of the Speed Force, and I needed both Cisco and Caitlin to become a god. It was fortunate for them that they were part of my plan.”

Barry would’ve laughed at his time remnant’s attempt to appear detached if he hadn’t been curious about the famous plan to achieve godhood.

“So, you can bring people back to life now?” he asked, skeptical despite Iris’ return being an irrefutable proof. “How did you get those powers?”

If Barry could get them too, maybe he could bring back his father, and Dante. According to Iris’ explanation of the whole time reversal process, bringing back his mother would be too taxing.

“You truly expect me to answer that question,” Savitar replied flatly.

“I don’t believe that you’ve gained divine powers,” Barry insisted. “You’re still a meta-human, otherwise this power-dampening signal wouldn’t work on you.”

“I don’t care what you believe,” the time remnant pointed out as he stepped away from the door and started walking toward the elevator.

“What next?” Barry demanded as he followed a few feet behind. “We disable the routers, you resurrect this earth’s Barry Allen, then what? Are you planning on leaving with Iris again?”

Savitar stopped in the middle of the hallway, forcing Barry to follow suit.

“Iris made it clear that she’s not mine to keep,” his older version informed him before turning around to glare at him. “Is that what you want to hear?” he added, his voice louder, “that after all I’ve done, you’re still the one reaping the benefits of my efforts? That you won in the end, despite the fact that you don’t deserve to have _her_ back!”

“Neither do you!” Barry shouted in return as he took a step closer to his time remnant. “You terrorized Iris for months! You hurt her, physically, emotionally…”

“She’s stronger than you give her credit for,” Savitar argued, “and at least my method saved her. What did you do, huh? Oh, right, depend on Tracy Brand to build something she wasn’t smart enough to create, four years in advance!”

“What else was I supposed to do?” Barry questioned as he walked up to Savitar and pushed at him, the memory of arguing with his future self in 2024 floating in the back of his mind.

“The only other choice was to kill you, something I couldn’t have done even if I’d been fast enough,” he pointed out. “I’m not Zoom!”

“Zoom had the good sense not to let his time remnants wallow in their misery,” Savitar spat as he pushed Barry back. “That’s a mercy future you never granted me, that you _right now_ would never grant me if I asked for it.”

“Why would I want to kill you now?” Barry demanded. “After learning that all this time you were trying to save Iris, after hearing you offer to resurrect another Barry as if it was nothing?”

“I don’t have anything against the Barry of this earth,” Savitar replied nonchalantly. “Quite the contrary, I admire him. He had the guts to confess his feelings to Iris early on, he got to be with her since high school. He probably never got called a nerd because he could kick bullies’ asses. He was a vigilante for two years without his speed, and he never tried to go back in time to get his parents back. Truly, if there’s one Barry Allen who deserves a happy ending, it’s him. Don’t you agree?”

Indeed, the more Barry learned about his Earth 51 counterpart, the more envious he was of the dead man. Earth 51 Barry Allen wasn’t without his faults, however.

“I can’t believe he left her to grieve alone, just to go on a suicide mission,” Barry whispered.

“Like you’re one to talk,” Savitar commented with a scoff. "You'll leave her too."

What?

“What do you—” Barry started asking, but then he remembered the article from 2024.

_Flash Missing—Vanishes in Crisis_

“The future isn’t set in stone,” Barry replied, hoping beyond hope that Savitar’s intervention had somehow erased that future event from existence.

For all they knew, the headline of the following day would be about him returning to Central City.

“It’s not, is it?” Savitar asked, and for a second Barry thought that he was being sarcastic.

But the far away gaze in the time remnant’s eyes suggested that Savitar himself was still wrapping his mind around that idea.

Only then did Barry truly _see_ this broken version of himself, and fully grasped the hurdles he’d had to overcome to achieve his plans.

“You weren’t sure you’d succeed,” he guessed, and the twitch of Savitar’s eyebrows confirmed his assessment.

“Everything seemed possible when I was in the Speed Force,” the time remnant recounted quietly. “But the moment I stepped out of it, I knew that it wouldn’t be as simple. Seeing Iris in person for the first time...I almost couldn’t touch her, I was so afraid that my plan would fail.”

Barry felt his heart break for his time remnant for the first time.

“You could’ve had her for yourself,” Barry commented quietly. “You insist that you and I are different, but as I’ve told Iris before, the only difference between you and I is her. Earlier, when she kissed you, it felt like looking in the mirror. You and I are the same. She would have forgiven you eventually.”

“That was the plan until you risked your life disappearing in the wrong universe,” Savitar pointed out, his verbal accusation accompanied with a point of his finger. 

“If I was sure that your death wouldn’t cause mine, I would’ve gladly left you to rot in this living hell,” he added bitterly. “But now that I’ve seen how this earth’s Iris is still denying her Barry’s death after a whole month, I know that my plan was bound to fail. We are not the same. I know for a fact that Iris would’ve never punched _you_ in the face.”

“Yeah, about that,” Barry said with a wince. “Good thing she’s not as brutal as Twain.”

They both started laughing but quickly stopped because the twin sounds of their laughter was a bit disturbing.

“Anyway,” Barry said after clearing his voice. “I just wanted to say sorry, and thank you. For saving Iris. I should’ve suspected that it was your goal all along.”

“And what would you have done if you’d known?” Savitar challenged him, his head tilted to the side.

Barry blinked at him, his mind blank for a moment.

“I don’t know,” he confessed. “That’s why I asked you what’s next, once we’re done here. What do you want?”

“Iris,” Savitar replied immediately, “but we’ve established that I won’t have that wish granted. And I’m through talking to you.”

Barry was about to call him back, but Savitar disappeared around a corner ahead just as footsteps resonated behind him.

He turned to a sight that still overwhelmed him after five days spent on this earth.

Two Irises. Twice the beauty, twice the grace, twice the confidence.

It was hard for Barry to keep his mind from wandering into embarrassing thoughts whenever he saw them side by side. At least it was easier for him to let Iris be in a separate room for more than a few minutes when she was in the company of her physically stronger doppelgänger.

“Barry,” his Iris greeted him with a smile as she walked to him for a hug, whereas her Twain simply nodded at him before looking away.

Feeling a pang of sympathy towards the P.I., Barry wondered if Iris had told her about Savitar’s offer to bring Earth 51 Barry back to life.

“We have good news,” Iris told him as she rushed out of his arms, seemingly realizing that the display of affection might make her doppelgänger uncomfortable.

Barry couldn’t wait to be back on Earth 1 so he could be as affectionate as he wished to be with his fiancee. He planned on spending three days locked up in the loft, alternating between making love to Iris, planning their wedding and eating.

“You do?” he asked, lifting a questioning eyebrow at Iris then Twain.

“I found a lead on one of Lady Kobra’s henchmen,” the P.I. replied as she brandished a USB card. “I have enough to encourage Singh to send a few meta-human units get her.”

Great timing. Iris had finally managed to successfully clear the obstacle course, and Quantum had finished testing the features of Barry and Savitar’s identical suits.

Earth 51 Cisco and Caitlin were still running simulations about the blackout, but they seemed close to a final diagnostic.

“We’re going home soon,” Iris announced with the radiant smile Barry had missed for two weeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you think of my fix-it for Earth 51 Iris?
> 
> Couldn't help bringing a bit of last chapter's Iris/Barry/Savitar interaction into the plot. They'd make such a cute OT3.


	10. Another Countdown—Iris/Barry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Executing the plan. It almost fails, but not quite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been less than a week since the last update but it feels like forever! I say it's time to give these guys back their powers, don't you agree?

Iris paced Captain Thawne’s office as she waited for him to return from Iron Heights.

Walking into the precinct had been easier than she had planned, which she should’ve expected from Twain’s instructions.

More than half of the people there knew Iris West, and no one even blinked at her request to see the leader of meta-human unit number 013.

Lieutenant Singh—the most familiar face in the very different-looking building—had been the one to usher her into the office.

Cisco 51 had confirmed Lady Kobra’s incarceration in her earpiece, and reported that Twain and Savitar were in position to break into the high-security prison to steal the syphon Earth 51 Eddie's team had used on the evil speedster.

Iris’ job was to prevent the CCPD's best meta-human unit to pursue N and the Chemist as soon as the alert of their break into and out of Iron Heights was given.

Barry, who was on standby at one of the routers’ buildings, hadn’t said a word despite their com channel allowing them to talk privately.

She understood why he disapproved of her interaction with the man who looked exactly like her late fiancé, but she also knew that he would keep his thoughts to himself until she prompted him to share them. And right now Iris didn’t want to be distracted from her task by an argument with her best friend and current fiancé.

Iris startled a little when the door of the office opened again, and she returned the smile Earth 51 Eddie gave her as he stepped inside.

“Miss West, I didn’t expect your visit,” he greeted, his voice laced with both surprise and delight. “I didn’t think you’d follow up with our case.”

“The last meta-human threat of Central City is finally behind bars,” Iris stated as impartially as she knew Twain would. “I had to come and congratulate you in person. Wish I had arrested her myself. She’s indirectly responsible for my change in career.”

“Your ex-boyfriend being an outlaw and tarnishing your reputation was responsible for your change in career,” the captain pointed out as he walked over to his desk, unbuckling his holster—a stun gun, as Cisco had predicted—and dropping it on a file cabinet tucked in a corner behind his desk.

“Barry’s secret would have remained one had the Kobras not turned the city against him,” Iris defended, unable to keep the outrage out of her voice.

She couldn’t imagine her doppelgänger’s frustration at having to publicly shun the love of her life, just so her own secret identity wouldn’t be revealed. Fabricating the identity of Nessir Twain hadn’t gotten the CCPD off her back, not until Earth 51 Caitlin had helped.

Iris could only imagine how careful Earth 51 Barry and Iris had to be in order not to be caught together after their fake breakup. All their careful planning had been shattered after the death of Twain’s father, then after the Chemist’s death. Iris felt like screaming at the unfair life her doppelgänger had. Ironically, it felt like a divine intervention that Savitar had tagged along with her and come on this earth, since he would be able to bring Earth 51 Barry back to life once he got his powers back.

“Sorry,” Earth 51 Eddie apologized, misinterpreting Iris’ silence as a sign of anger. “I shouldn’t speak ill of our former best CSI, especially because he’s someone you care about. It was tactless of me, Iris, please forgive me.”

Iris stared at the baby blue eyes she had almost forgotten, and nodded quietly as guilt almost made her choke on air.

She’d loved Eddie, she truly had. But if she had been honest with herself after the Christmas Barry confessed his feelings to her, if she had taken a good look into her heart and realized that she was in love with Barry too, Eddie would’ve never been caught in the crossfire between Barry and Eobard Thawne. He would have moved on from her and would’ve had a great career as a cop and found a woman who deserved him.

Iris’ fear of being a puppet to fate, her despair to prove to herself and Eddie that they could be together despite what an article from the future said—despite her silent hope that Barry would change the timeline and make things right, make a future when she indeed became Iris West-Allen—that’s what had killed Eddie.

“Iris?” Captain Thawne called out just as a tear escaped one of her eyes.

It was a good thing that Twain wore so little makeup, otherwise Iris would’ve left a streak of mascara on her cheek as she wiped off the tear.

“Sorry, don’t mind me,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders and a smile she knew was unconvincing. “I came to congratulate you on the arrest, not to make a scene.”

“You know, it’s odd that you already know about the arrest,” Eddie’s doppelgänger stated with careful enunciation.

Iris frowned at him, but his face adopted a poker face her Eddie had never worn in her presence. The hairs at the back of her neck rose and her heart started beating furiously.

“In fact, I haven’t even started writing my report,” the captain informed as he stood up from his chair, sliding his gun out of the holster and dropping it on his desk, muzzle pointing towards Iris.

“Well, doubting the success of your mission would be doubting not just the skills of your unit, but also doubting my own investigative skills and the talent and efficiency of my friend, Cisco Ramon, who designed the speed force syphon I gave you,” she quickly replied, making sure to add a little snark in her voice.

That made Earth 51 Eddie blink, and when he nodded and took his hand away from the gun Iris internally sighed in relief.

“Ramon was friends with Allen, wasn’t he?” he asked rhetorically.

“Yes he was, why?” she talked back. “You want to accuse him of being part of the Chemist’ team too?”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Eddie’s doppelgänger assured, looking chastised. “And I wasn’t among those who suspected you of being N back then. I’ve been trying to arrest Twain even before Allen’s secret was outed. I know her better than anyone here, and she's very different from you, kickass attitude aside.”

“Whatever you say Captain,” Iris drawled with an eye roll just before Thawne’s office phone rang.

Iris stared at the contraption, which looked more like a small keyboard than a phone.

“Thawne,” Eddie’s doppelgänger answered after pressing a button.

“Cap, the Chemist and N were spotted at Iron Heights!” a female voice half-shouted into the phone.

Iris panicked for half a second but then saw the gun on the desk. Was she really thinking what she was thinking?

“I’m on my way!” Thawne shouted back and as soon as he hung up Iris grabbed the gun and aimed at him, quickly pressing the safety release.

“What are you doing?” Earth 51 Eddie demanded, his eyes wide in shock.

“It’s for your own good,” Iris promised as she pulled the trigger, and was impressed that the electric charge was silent.

Very conveniently, the cop fell back into his seat, and Iris made him lean into the desk, folding his arms to rest his head on.

She locked the office door, shoved a chair against the handle, wiped the gun clean then pressed it against Thawne’s digits to add back his fingertips on it before returning it to its holster. Finally, she fished out the remote for the smoke bomb Twain had planted against a smoke detector the night before.

Iris pressed it as she opened the only window in the room, which was thankfully on the second floor of the building.

Iris waited for the few people outside to rush into the building—wasn’t the protocol to stay out? Weird—before closing the window and jumping. Her landing and forward roll were softened by the lawn. She couldn't thank her doppelgänger enough for the training. She promised herself to keep honing her new physical skills on Earth 1.

“Everything alright, Iris Prime?” Cisco 51’s voice came in her ear just as she started the engine of Twain’s compact hovering car.

“Thawne will be out for a while,” she reported as she drove the vehicle back to her doppelgänger’s office building, making sure to restart the parking countdown at the spot she had vacated an hour ago. When the police would come to interrogate her, it would look like she had returned fifteen minutes earlier, making it impossible for Iris West to be at CCPD when the smoke bomb went off.

“I’m about to edit the security camera’s feed,” the engineer let her know. “Was that forgetful receptionist there today? Williams?”

“Yeah,” she confirmed as she jogged into the building. “He was wearing his uniform.”

“Good, I have a couple footages of Iris saying goodbye to him and no one else as she walks out of the precinct. Well done.”

“It was nothing,” the reporter said as she settled on the small couch of her doppelgänger.

She felt a tiny bit bad for Captain Thawne. No one would believe him when he’d report Iris for shooting him.

But more than that, Iris was disappointed that she didn’t do much, in the end.

Despite her training, Iris was not going to be at the heart of the action, what with Twain and Savitar stealing the syphon and bringing it to Cisco 51, who would then convert it into an EMP and pass it on to Barry, who would infiltrate the secure location of one of the three dampening signal routers.

“Barry?” she called as she changed the frequency of her com.

“Iris,” he replied in a slow exhale, and Iris’ frantic heart finally calmed down.

“Quantum likely already told you, but Captain Thawne’s out of the equation,” she said nervously, twirling the ends of her hair. “I shot him with his own stun gun, made sure to wipe out my fingerprints.”

“Let’s not share that part of the story with Joe when we tell him,” Barry suggested with amusement, and Iris chuckled, more in relief than in good humor.

“Are we okay?” she asked quietly.

“Of course we are, Iris,” Barry replied just as quietly. “I’m sorry for being distant earlier. My insecurities have been reeling their ugly head, but I shouldn’t have let it come between us. Sorry for not seeing you off. You did good out there.”

“It’s nothing compared to what you have to do,” Iris countered as she let her shoulders drop. “Be careful, okay?”

“Always,” he promised. “I gotta go, Quantum’s on his way. Love you.”

“Love you too,” Iris said back. “And, Barry?”

“Yeah?” he asked casually, his breath getting louder—he’d started running, which was hard for Iris to picture, him running without his powers.

“When we get home, let’s not leave the bed until I’ve blown your mind so hard that your insecurities will never return.”

“OhmygodIris!” Barry exclaimed in one breath as Iris cackled. “I’m cutting you off before you get me killed on the wrong earth. And you're deluding yourself if you think for a second that you’ll have the energy to do anything to me after I get my _vibrating_ hands on you!”

Iris laugh turned into a gasp, and before she could chastise Barry for turning her on when he was too far away to take responsibility for it—the other way was allowed because Barry could usually speed to her location to hold her accountable for her teasing—she heard the beep indicating that their channel was off.

She let herself fall sideways on the other Iris’ couch, sending prayers for the mission to go without too many itches—there would be one or two, for sure, there always was.

* * *

Barry calibrated the speed force bomb, setting the timer to fifteen minutes so both he and Savitar could escape the area separately without getting caught by either of the two meta-human units guarding the place. The blast wouldn’t be fatal to anyone who wasn’t standing directly near the engine room, but it would knock unconscious anyone in the vicinity for an uncertain amount of time, and Barry couldn’t afford that. 

Both speedsters, as soon as they'd gain their powers back, had to completely disassemble the three routers and make sure to hide the necessary pieces to repair them before heading back to the lab.

Fifteen minutes to escape, an overnight shift for him, Twain, Quantum and Savitar to keep the city safe until power was restored, then Barry could get back home to Earth 1 with Iris.

The two weeks of gruesome training by Twain, the hours of recon, the tests for Earth 51 Cisco’s new gadgets, Barry's appreciation for his biochemist skills unaffected by his speed...Even consuming regular amounts of food had been part of an intense experience for Barry, and he was grateful for it.

He wasn’t sure that he felt content leaving this earth to its odd fate, as it was only a question of time until the government provided this Central City with new routers, but Barry was certain that Earth 51 Team Flash would figure things out, especially once Savitar resurrected Earth 51 Barry Allen.

“Iris!” Caitlin’s voice shouted somewhere back in the secret lab, forcing Barry back to the present moment, dread settling in his stomach.

The doctor’s voice had sounded far away to him, since her mic wasn’t currently connected to his earpiece. But if Barry could still hear her so clearly…

“Quantum, what’s going on?” he asked as calmly as he could.

He reminded himself that the Iris of this earth had super powers, healing powers… 

“Quantum!” Barry stage whispered just as he heard footsteps above him.

In the room where he’d left the window open for his rapid exit.

Shit .

“B.A.! Twain is down—fuck, her vitals look bad, but it’s probably just shock, right? Fuck!—B.A. please tell me that you’ve already activated the speed force bomb!”

“Doing it now,” Barry said, changing the count down and pressing the switch. “T minus four hundred seconds,” he added as he started the countdown on his own watch.

“Wait, what? That’s not enough time for you to leave the compound through that back exit!” Cisco pointed out. “We need you out of range of the blast!”

“Then I’ll leave through the front door and steal a vehicle,” Barry decided as he drew one of his stun guns, released the safety and pressed the loading command. “Fifteen minutes is too long to leave Twain wounded.”

“Okay, yeah, true,” Quantum agreed reluctantly, sounding distracted by whatever Caitlin was reporting. “She’s had worse but that was back when she had her powers. Caitlin is headed her way, and her vitals have stabilized. Let me find you the least crowded path out. Here: take a right when you get out the—what? Caitlin, what did you say?”

Barry froze halfway out of the electrical room, dread paralyzing him.

Was Twain’s injury more serious than her suit sensors had first revealed?

“Okay, good…” Cisco’s doppelgänger was whispering in Barry’s ear, though he was clearly not addressing him.

And the sounds of people running on his floor were getting closer.

“Man, I know you’re worried about Twain, but I need you to get me out of here A.S.A.P!” Barry reminded the engineer as he took a right, wincing as the footsteps seemed to sound even closer from that side. “Which way?”

For a second that seemed to last forever, he only heard hushed voices whose words he couldn’t make out. The sound of blood pumping erratically through the arteries and veins of his head was much louder, almost drowning the shouts of the guards running around the building.

“B.A. go go go! All the way down, last door on the left! Close it!”

The accidental slam of the door behind Barry was thankfully muted by the noise made by the movements of the meta-human unit guarding the compound.

“I know it’s a closet but hang tight,” Quantum said in Barry’s ear. “Savitar hijacked a hovering craft and is headed towards you. Let me get these guys out of your way.

An alarm resonated throughout the compound, but the officers closest to Barry didn’t seem ready to locate its cause.

“They’re trying to distract us,” a man said loud enough to be heard over the alarm. “Just like at Mercury Labs, Twain was found there. Trusted source estimates that they might get her this time.”

“Let Thawne deal with her,” a woman replied before speaking louder, possibly in her earpiece—it was Patty, or rather, Patty’s doppelgänger— “I need updates on those cameras feed yesterday! What?”

Barry couldn’t hear what was being reported back to her, but he had a bad feeling about this.

T-minus two hundred and twenty seconds. Hopefully Savitar was close, and that hovering craft was fast.

“The Chemist is coming here?” Spivot asked, her voice laced in disbelief, “Driving my truck!? Miller, join us on the ground floor, and let’s get this S.O.B.!”

Barry contained his curse. If they had eyes on Savitar, then Earth 51 Cisco had been kicked out of their system. The engineer had warned them that he wouldn’t be able to hack the surveillance systems for long, but the team had held hope that he would.

“Hey, you guys heard? It’s actually Johnson leading the Mercury Labs case,” a hard-breathing female voice stated as a new set of footsteps approached Barry’s hideout. “Twain is confirmed shot and losing blood, but somehow she’s managed to hide again.”

“What the hell?” Patty’s doppelgänger exclaimed as the rest of the team jogged away from the closet. “How’s Thawne not on this?”

“Not sure what happened, but there’s been an incident at the precinct while he was there,” the other woman announced. 

“Well, too bad for him,” Spivot said.

The sound of a stun gun being loaded reached Barry’s voice, but he barely registered it as he glanced at his watch.

“He’s going to look so stupid when you arrest the Chemist and he lets another opportunity to capture N slip out through his fingers,” the other woman said with a chuckle. “It’s unit zero zero nine’s turn to shine!”

Whatever Patty’s doppelgänger response was, Barry didn’t hear it over the alarm and the thunderous beat of his heart as the seconds trickled down.

“Bad news, B.A.,” Quantum announced in a rush, “Spivot’s unit is standing between you and Savitar who’s very close now. If you don’t meet him at the entrance in the next minute…”

Both Barry’s watch and Quantum’s timer on the other side of the com beeped. They had ninety seconds until the blast.

“Fuck!” the powerless breacher curse. “Sending you and Savitar Caitlin’s location, she’s found Iris—I mean Twain, her condition is stable so she’s good, but we’ll need a distraction to get her out of Mercury Labs safely.”

Barry wasted five precious seconds to unstrap his second stun gun as he committed the location of Caitlin's doppelgänger to memory, and invested five more to stop shaking. He couldn’t afford not to make it out of this compound. 

He had to help rescue Iris’ doppelgänger.

The second he stepped out of the closet, he let the muscle memory N had drilled into him take over.

_“Aim,_

_shoot,_

_roll forward,_

_take cover,_

_fake a shot to distract,_

_aim true,_

_Shoot—_ ” her voice resonated in his mind as he went through the motions.

Barry’s momentum was disrupted when one of the officers—Spivot herself, his subconscious supplied—shot him in the chest. He hissed at the nasty sting, but kept going.

 _“Don’t worry about being shot the first time,”_ Twain had told him during training, _“the suit will fully dissipate the charge, but it will sting a little. Just don’t let that officer shoot you again and discover that the shield can get depleted. Cisco’s still working on an improved shield.”_

Somehow Barry found it in himself to slow down the fall of his ex’s doppelgänger after he shot her in the leg without blinking.

“Hurry!” his own voice—distorted through the Chemist’s gas mask—shouted a yard ahead of him.

Savitar was waiting just outside the front doors, which were propped open by the bodies of the officers the time remnant had stunned unconscious.

Barry ran faster than he’d ever done in his life without his powers, and only checked his watch when Savitar launched the hovering craft away from the building.

Ten seconds.

“We won’t make it,” he stated, dejected.

They’d both be unconscious while Earth 51 Caitlin and Twain tried to escape the police—which was improbable, as the building would most definitely lock shut as soon as it lost power. 

Before launching the mission, the team had made sure that no patient registered in the various hospitals, clinics, retirement and private homes would depend on electricity to stay alive. The blackout would create new patients, and rushing those to hospitals in neighboring cities had been on the list of the duties of Quantum, Savitar and Barry’s night shift. Barry felt horrible that he would leave the breacher to get the job done alone.

“Focus!” Savitar ordered sharply. “At this distance, we have about one eighth of a second between the shut down of the routers and the blast reaching us.”

“What?”

“Run!”

Barry almost didn’t make it. It took him an eighth of a second to recover from the shock of having his speed force back, but as luck would have it Savitar had underestimated their time window. Barry avoided being caught by the blast by a hair.

With his mind on Iris and Caitlin’s doppelgängers, Barry ran towards Mercury Lab on the Northern border of the city. He'd heard the crack of Savitar’s lightning, but could only guess that the faster speedster was headed towards Iron Heights to keep the prisoners in check.

Barry arrived at Mercury Labs and knocked out all the police officers wandering in the dark before finding the two women.

Quantum was just breaching into the flashlight-lit storage room they were hiding in when Barry skidded to a stop.

“That felt amazing,” Earth 51 Cisco said as he looked back at his closing portal. “I didn’t remember breaching feeling like that.”

“Healing fast is more painful than I remember it,” Twain growled as she removed a bloody hand from her shoulder.

“Let me remove the bullet before your skin closes around it,” Earth 51 Caitlin instructed.

“What can I do to help?” Barry asked, when all he wanted to do was rush to Twain’s apartment to see Iris safe and sound. Seeing Twain bleeding was making him nauseous.

“Here,” Quantum said as he threw two objects in the air.

Barry caught and stared at two small spheres with speaker holes and knobs.

“What? You don’t have walkie talkies on your earth?” Earth 51 Cisco asked.

“Oh, yes we do,” Barry replied. “They don’t look like that, that’s all.”

“Okay, cool, I don’t want Iris Prime to freak out when I connect to the one in Twain’s apartment,” the engineer commented.

“Hey can you clean my blood on the third floor and the southeast stairs between there and here?” Twain herself asked between grunts of pain. “And make sure they didn’t take a sample of it.”

“Oh, yeah,” Barry mumbled as he stared at his fiancée’s doppelgänger, who looked better by the second but he still couldn't feel reassured.

He swallowed hard and forced his feet to move away from the injured woman who looked just like the love of his life.

It was easy to get rid of all traces of Twain’s blood, not just because of his speed but also because of all the chemical arsenal the Chemist’s utility belt carried.

“Done,” he reported to the Team at Tannhauser Labs, where Earth 51 Cisco had breached them all back.

Caitlin’s secret lab looked a bit creepy but kinda cool with all the bioluminescent lightning.

“Right, can you give the other walkie talkie to Savitar?” Quantum requested. “Hopefully he’s done, you guys need to disassemble the routers sooner rather than later. I need less than a minute to hack into the shared frequency of first responders, but they might take a while to open the channels themselves. They mostly use those old walkie talkies that depend on repeaters.”

“On it,” Barry promised as he sped to Iron Heights.

Savitar had knocked out and tied up both the criminals and the prison personnel, and was phasing through hallways and cells when Barry joined him.

“What are you looking for?” the younger speedster asked as he threw the com device at his time remnant.

“ _Who_ I’m looking for,” Savitar corrected as he stopped phasing to catch the walkie talkie, “is the guy who did this,” he finished as he pointed towards a big hole in a reinforced door.

“Girder,” Barry guessed, frowning as he looked around, before shrugging. “We’ll find him soon enough, he’s not known for his subtlety. We need to break down the routers then wait for 911 calls.”

For a moment he thought that Savitar had gone back to phasing again, but he quickly realized that the other speedster had left the prison and already returned to his initial position.

“I threw whatever pieces I could carry to that hazardous waste disposal site near the northern branch of Tannhauser industries,” Savitar informed casually.

Before Barry could feel envious of his time remnant’s superior speed, the crackle of both their radios resonated. 

“Hey guys, medical emergency near the corner of Fifth Street and Washington Avenue,” Quantum’s voice came up.

Barry looked questioningly at Savitar, who rolled his eyes but blinked out of the prison just the same.

For a full hour the two speedsters evacuated people in need of medical assistance to neighboring cities, while Twain and Quantum filled the CCPD cells with vandals and other petty criminals—human and meta-human alike. Earth 51 Caitlin stayed in her lab to coordinate their movement.

Barry was speeding back into the C. Snow building when his radio beeped, indicating that someone was trying to make contact on a different frequency.

Iris, maybe? He’d been too busy helping people in imminent danger to think about her.

“Yeah?” he answered after twisting the right knob.

“Funny that the first person picking up has their voice disguised,” a familiar voice replied. “What kinda company have you been keeping, huh, ex-detective West?”

Barry blinked as he heard the faint noise of a scuffle in the background.

Tony Woodward? He was with Twain? No, the thief was back at the Lab since a few minutes ago…

Iris!

Without thinking, Barry sped to Twain’s apartment—forced himself not to panic at Iris’ unconscious but breathing form—and sped the meta-human to Iron Heights.

“I knew that you’d come, Allen,” Tony said, unbothered to be back in a cell. “At first I thought that West was also a meta, the ever mysterious N, but looks like she’s not even as good of a fighter as she’s supposed to be. I always thought that you two were overrated. ‘The Gold Standard’, my ass. You’re no better than me Allen.”

“Yet you’re the one in jail and I’m the one arresting you,” Barry replied, feeling mildly satisfied to defeat the doppelgänger of his childhood bully.

He didn’t wait for Woodward’s response, just sped back to Twain’s apartment, expecting to find Iris still unconscious since it had been less than a minute since he left.

Instead, he found her in the small bathroom of the place, inspecting her unblemished face.

“Iris?” he called after removing his mask, startling her. “Sorry, are you okay? I thought Tony knocked you out pretty hard.”

“He did,” she confirmed as she stepped out of the bathroom and into his arms, squeezing him as she sighed loudly. “I’ve probably been out for a bit, the pain’s already gone.”

“What? No, it’s been a couple minutes at most since he knocked you out,” Barry corrected her. “I heard you two fight on the walkie talkie.”

“He probably went easy on me, then,” she speculated, her voice unsure. “His metal punch was really painful, but maybe it was the shock of it that made it hurt more than it really did.”

“We’ll have Dr. Snow examine you once the power is back on,” the speedster promised as he kissed the top of her head.

“How’s the ‘night shift’ going? Shouldn’t you be out there saving people?” his fiancée asked as she slightly pulled away from their hug.

“It’s slowed down already, people know by now to stay inside,” Barry assured. “And Savitar is so fast that I truly think that he could’ve done everything on his own.”

“Hopefully people won’t start worshipping him,” Iris joked. “Well, if he’s too fast they won’t even know that it’s him and not the Chemist.”

They both chuckled at her words, and then Iris laughed at how loud Barry’s stomach growled.

“Go, get yourself some Big Belly Burger,” she encouraged him with a gentle push. “Get me a cheeseburger with a double side of fries, I’m not leaving this universe without sampling its best fast food.”

“Your priorities leave a lot to be desired, Miss West,” Barry mocked her as he walked backward toward the entrance door, putting his mask back on.

“It’s soon-to-be Mrs. West-Allen to you, Chemist!” she joked back with a wink.

 _Not soon enough_ , Barry thought before he sped through the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback appreciated! I'm considering writing a plot-compliant fluffy chapter next, but if there's no interest I might just wrap up the story. There are maybe three chapters left total.


	11. Another Kiss—Savitar/Iris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Savitar and Iris have a heart to heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be fluffy...Epic fail. The angst isn't that bad, I think? And there's a bit of fluff at the end? You tell me!

Central City of Earth 51 sounded much quieter than Savitar had ever expected it to be. Even petty criminals seemed to be taking a day-off after the night of the blackout.

Or maybe Quantum and Twain had rounded them all up and they were overflowing the cells of CCPD right now. 

Savitar did another round of the city just to make sure, it only took him three seconds.

He stopped by a Big Belly Burger on the way back, checked in with the team when he reached Dr. Snow’s secret lab—apparently Quantum’s sensors couldn’t pinpoint him because he moved too fast—then headed to his guest room at normal speed.

He rounded the corner of the secret residential floor, and froze when he saw Iris standing against the wall across his door.

Her head was down as she played with her phone—likely playing Sudoku—but she seemed to sense his presence because she perked up immediately before turning her head towards him.

“Hi,” she said, almost shily, and one closer look told Savitar that she was upset.

“What’s wrong?” he asked quietly, forcing himself to take slow steps towards her, squashing down the urge to gather her in his arms.

“Can we talk? In private?” she requested as she slipped her phone in a pocket of a sweater, her voice almost a whisper.

“Of course,” he agreed as he took his key card out and pressed to the reader at the door.

For a good minute the time remnant simply observed Iris taking in his suite, which he knew was identical to the one she herself occupied with Barry.

“Does Barry know that you’re here?” Savitar couldn’t help asking.

She blinked at him, confusion painted on her face for a few seconds.

“I thought that you remembered everything that Barry does?” she said.

“Ah,” the time remnant reacted. “I do, but I prefer suppressing the memories, they’re more at the back of my mind unless I focus on them.”

Iris simply nodded before walking towards the couch in the sitting room.

“Iris?” Savitar prompted her.

He’d rather she tell him whatever was bothering her rather than have him revisit Barry’s memories to get his answers.

Iris didn’t look at him. Instead, she slipped a hand in the pocket that didn’t have her phone and brought out—an energy bar?

“I’ve already eaten,” the speedster informed her with a shrug. “And no offense to Dr. Snow, but I don’t particularly like the taste of these.”

“Yeah, they’re too sweet, but with that sour after taste, it’s gross,” Iris described.

Savitar blinked, momentarily surprised that she’d try the power bar. Even on Earth 1 they tasted bad—though they were much more tolerable— Barry had complained about it multiple times. Why would she want to try them for herself?

Realization hit him just as Iris’ eyes locked with his.

Her beautiful brown gaze was sharp with accusation.

“Iris, I can explain,” the speedster offered hesitantly, unsure if he should sit down by her or maintain the distance between them.

He took her long sigh followed by her scooting up against the couch as an invitation to get closer.

“I didn’t plan on giving you powers, I swear,” he told her as he sat at the edge of the other end of the couch, his body turned towards her.

“I didn’t even fully understand those powers until we met Twain,” he quickly added in response to Iris’ narrowed eyes. “I only knew that you had fast healing, because you healed from your wound so fast.”

“But I didn’t have powers before you…” she started, her voice breaking as she trailed off.

“The only explanation I can think of is that your meta gene was dormant,” he speculated. “Just like Cisco’s, remember it took him a year and a half to manifest his powers? Yours took even longer to emerge. I think that I did trigger the gene activation by using my speed force on you. For that I’m sorry, Iris. truly I am.”

For a few minutes they kept silent, he sat with his elbows on his knees, her curved up on the couch, her arms around her bent legs.

“You said that you would revive this earth’s Barry Allen,” Iris spoke again, “but wouldn’t it be too taxing? You told me that it took you a lot of energy, and I was only dead for a few days…”

“Barry’s a speedster,” Savitar explained, “I don’t have to reverse his wounds, I just have to bring his body back to life. The Speed Force will gladly do the rest.”

“Why would the Speed Force be glad about it? Doesn’t it hate speedsters abusing their powers?” the reporter questioned, her voice slightly muffled because she had the lower part of her face against her knees.

“I’m the one abusing my powers,” the speedster pointed out as he looked down at his hands. “And Barry Allen from this earth was artificially and abruptly cut-off from the Speed Force, so to the Speed Force his resurrection will be righting an imbalance.”

“I see,” Iris acknowledged before falling quiet again.

Being so far away from her while they were sitting together felt wrong to Savitar. It felt wrong to his body, to his mind, and to his soul...Yet he remained where he was, poised to stand up and put even more distance between them if she requested it of him.

“You defied the laws of physics for me,” Iris stated a few minutes later, and the time remnant turned his gaze to her, just to see that she was looking at him too.

“You bent reality to save my life,” she added, her eyes welling up. “And you activated powers I didn’t even know I had. Thank you.”

Savitar almost startled when he realized that his body had moved without his consent. He was about to stop himself from invading Iris’ space when he saw her unfold her limbs to allow him to snuggle into her.

God, he’d missed this. How had he survived existing without her embrace for close to two months?

“Thank you,” Iris repeated, quiet sobs making her small frame tremble in his arms. “Thank you for finding a way to save us both.”

His own tears wet the shoulder of her sweater, but she didn’t seem to mind. She kept on sobbing into his chest herself.

Even after his tears had dried and she had quieted down, Savitar didn’t dare move from Iris, though their hug was a bit awkward. She’d soon pull away because she definitely wasn’t comfortable with her legs bent to the side like that, so he discreetly breathed in her scent and committed the moment to his memory.

As if on cue, Iris leaned away from him, but then her hands framed his face and the next thing Savitar knew, she was kissing him.

To whomever would ask him, the speedster would’ve sworn that his heart stopped beating for at least five seconds right there.

That didn’t stop his arms to tighten around her as he returned the chaste kiss.

“Iris,” he breathed out when his heart decided to beat again and his brain allowed him to pull away.

“Umm?” she carelessly responded as she shifted her head, tucking it in the crook of his neck.

“Is Barry okay with this?” he asked in a whisper.

“If you’d looked into Barry’s memory, you’d know,” Iris chided him softly.

He opened one eye to glare at her.

“I was giving you some privacy,” he pointed out.

“Oh, please, like you haven’t seen it all,” she talked back with an eye roll. “I admit that the first few days here I avoided being intimate with Barry in my own attempt to spare you the embarrassment… But then I decided that there was no point of feeling awkward about this.”

“How can you say that?” Savitar asked, offended.

He slid back on the couch in order to straighten up, but all he managed to do was bring Iris closer, their chests touching.

“Err, sorry,” he whispered apologetically as he felt his face reddening.

“Just kiss me, Savitar,” Iris whispered back.

He should’ve denied her request, or at least hesitated, but Iris’ wishes had always been a command.

So he kissed her, and for a couple minutes he enjoyed the playful tug and slide of lips.

Then _finally_ she parted her lips and he licked into her mouth like a starved and thirsty man.

As the kiss got more heated and right on the edge of dirty, Savitar’s mind got weak enough for Barry’s memories to slip to its forefront.

_“I lost count of the days,” Iris confessed as she sighed into Barry’s chest. “We’ve been far from home too long, babe. I can’t believe it’s hitting me just now.”_

_“I can,” Barry asserted as he rubbed his cheek against her hair. “You’re my home, Iris. I could spend centuries away from Earth 1 and be just fine as long as I’m with you. That’s all I ever wanted.” his voice was heavy with emotion_

_“That’s all Savitar wanted too,” Iris added sadly. “He told me that he knew that he didn’t deserve to be happy with me, but that he couldn’t not try. He saved me and explained why he had to kill me in the first place, and the first thing I did when he turned his back was to run away from him. I’m no better than the friends and family who shunned him in the future…”_

“I’ve already forgiven you Iris,” Savitar said as he gently pushed her away.

“Huh? What?” she babbled as she blinked at him, her face flushed, her lips swollen, her pupils blown out.

Savitar ached with the desire to speed her into his bedroom and to show her how much he wanted to be with her and make her happy, to show her that he loved her better than his original version.

“What are you thinking about?” Iris asked softly as she nibbled on his lips and almost made him yelp when she straddled him, her hands slipping to his neck.

“You, _always_ ,” he confessed in a daze, though he regretted his words the second they came out.

Iris leaned away to look him in the eyes. He couldn’t stand the pity that was about to shine in her warm gaze, so he sped out of her embrace, dropping her back to the couch gently before standing up and taking a few steps away from her.

“Hey!” she exclaimed a bit angrily. “Don’t do that, don’t _ever_ use your speed to run away from me. Don’t ever think about running away from me!”

“But the other way around is fine, huh?” he spat back.

“This better be the last time you guilt-trip me about this, or so help me God!” Iris half-shouted.

“Yeah? How can I help you?” he joked without mirth just to get back at her for making jokes about his godhood.

Iris froze, her gorgeous eyes boiling with frustration as she silently glared at him.

“I said,” Savitar articulated slowly before speeding back to the couch, “how can I help you?”

He expected her to jump in surprise, but he was the one who was shocked when his back unexpectedly hit the cushions.

Iris had pushed him down, and was now leaning over him, her dark tresses caging both of their faces. She’d even locked down his lower body with hers.

“Not bad, West,” he complimented her with a smirk after he caught his breath. “Twain trained you well. If you keep it up, in a few years you’ll be just as dangerous as her.”

“In a few _hours_ she’ll be just as happy as me,” Iris countered high above him, “because she’ll have her Barry back.”

“I suppose,” the time remnant acknowledged with a shrug.

“Thanks to you,” Iris pointed out.

“What are you getting at?” Savitar questioned skeptically.

“You’re a good man, Savitar,” she answered. “You’ve done a lot of bad things, but you deserve a chance to atone for them, and you deserve to be happy.”

“I can’t be happy,” he argued immediately, sorrow threatening to constrict his throat. “Not without you. Not without your love.”

“I’m here,” she replied with a small smile, bringing her knuckles to brush his cheek. “And I love you.”

He closed his eyes for a few seconds, unwilling to believe the earnestness in her eyes. After taking a centering breath, he stared at her again.

“How can you love me?” he challenged her, “I killed you. I took you away from your loved ones, planned on keeping you like a trophy of my victory against your fiancé…”

It was unfair to use her own words against her, but he knew that he didn’t stand a chance against her on his own.

“Yet at the first sign that Barry was in trouble, you brought me back to Earth-1,” Iris argued as she sat back up, still on his lap, her thumb rubbing his cheekbones.

“If he died I might disappear, so I had to make sure he was okay,” the time remnant countered as he turned his head to the side.

“Barry told me that’s not true,” Iris said as she used both hands to turn his head back towards her. “He would’ve killed himself months ago if that had guaranteed your death. You could’ve killed him many times back on Earth-1, you could’ve let him die here on Earth 51, but you didn’t. Why?”

“You would’ve hated me for it,” Savitar replied truthfully. “You already hated me for being your enemy—”

“I’ve never hated you, Savitar,” she cut him off. “For many months I feared you, and pitied you, and despised what you had done, but I didn’t hate you for a second.”

“Because I look just like _him_ ,” he guessed bitterly.

“Because you _are_ him,” she corrected him. “If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have cared to bring me back, you would’ve killed me and become the most powerful villain our earth has ever known.”

She was right, there was really no denying it. Iris knew him better than anyone, at times even better than he knew himself.

But so what if she loved him?

“It doesn’t matter,” he whispered bitterly. “You’re going to marry _him_ , not me, it doesn’t matter that you think of me as a broken version of Barry Allen—”

“Do you feel broken right now?” she asked him, and he frowned at the unexpected question.

“Be honest with me and with yourself,” she insisted before he could answer that of course he felt broken.

That would’ve been a lie.

He hadn’t felt broken in weeks.

He hadn’t felt broken since Iris had hugged him back in the loft on Earth 572.

Since then, he’d fought with her, verbally and physically, he’d worked with her and with versions of his friends that he didn’t resent, he’d worn a suit and saved a Central City, and he was going to help Iris’ doppelgänger find happiness again.

Yes, at times he’d felt sad that he couldn’t have Iris for himself, but he’d cherished seeing her smile genuinely, her mirth untainted by the fear of imminent death. He’d seen her grow as an individual, learning new skills from Twain both as a fighter and as an investigator. 

Most importantly, he hadn’t had to play the villain, hadn’t had to hurt anyone, hadn’t lived with a century-long fear of being trapped in a time loop where he had to kill Iris all over again.

A part of him would always carry the darkness that he had embraced to reach this point, but no, he wasn’t broken anymore.

“Savitar?” Iris prompted him with a small smile.

“Barry,” he corrected her as he gently gripped her wrists with his hands and smiled back. “I’m not Savitar anymore.”

* * *

“There’s no way he’s fine with this,” Savitar said—no, he was Barry now, and Iris needed to find a way to address the two differently.

They were sitting in the main room of Caitlin 51’s secret lab, older Barry searching for Barry 51’s grave on the map of this universe Central City.

They’d spent the rest of the morning there, taking over the task of watching over the city for their Earth 51 friends.

Caitlin and Cisco’s doppelgängers had looked exhausted and accordingly grateful to take a break—thankfully neither had to go to work due to repairs related to the recent power outage—which had made Iris realize belatedly that she was okay despite being awake for over twenty-four hours because of her healing powers.

Barry had showed up unexpectedly in the middle of the slow shift, right at the moment that Iris had dropped a chaste kiss on his time remnant’s lips.

Her fiancé had stared at both of them for an awkward moment, then had casually asked his older self if he needed a hand pulling out Barry 51’s coffin from its tomb.

The former Savitar had quietly nodded, and Barry had just left to go pick up Twain.

Two minutes later, Iris was still waiting for the guilt she was supposed to feel for getting caught kissing older Barry.

Technically, she hadn’t cheated on her fiancé, but it was the principle that counted to her. Or, at least she thought that it would count, but apparently it didn’t.

Her Barry’s reasoning had seemed convoluted before, but now she thought she understood his point of view.

 _“I’ve kissed you in other timelines, Iris,”_ he’d pointed out earlier that week when they’d rehashed their argument about her talking to Eddie 51, and she had pettily criticized him for not keeping that same jealous energy when she talked to Savitar. _“I almost kissed Iris on Earth-2—hey, that first kiss was not consensual!—and she’s not you at all, so I really don’t have the right to forbid you to do whatever you want with my future self.”_

 _“I mean, come on, if I accidentally found myself in the future and saw future you? I wouldn’t worry about betraying you by loving her.”_ he’d confided with her honestly. _“Tell me if you’re uncomfortable with that, but after time traveling so many times, I’ve definitely become desensitized to those questions of identity. And yes, for a while I didn’t want to consider Savitar as myself, but since we got here, that’s exactly who I know he is: an older version of me. I don’t mean that I won’t be jealous seeing you with him, but it’s the same kind of silly jealousy I have for my future self who’s already your husband.”_

The rumble of her own stomach startled Iris, and she swatted older Barry’s side as he laughed.

“Shut up!” she whined before shuffling to the infirmary to get an energy bar. “Why am I already hungry, ugh! This super powers thing sucks!”

“Skipping on sleep and going through a lot of emotions tend to take a lot of energy,” the former Savitar informed her as he leaned against the computer station.

“You apprehended metas and helped people all night before going through those emotions with me, and I don’t hear your stomach growling,” she pointed out when she returned from the kitchenette after swallowing half of the bar she grabbed from Barry's stash.

“I ate for days earlier this morning,” he explained, “since I knew I’d be spending a fair amount of energy to bring back Earth 51 Barry Allen.”

“I see,” Iris acknowledged before making a face from the taste of the energy bar. 

“For your information, the energy bars on Earth-1 taste much better,” older Barry let her know.

“Thank god,” she exclaimed, then eyed older Barry critically. “By the way, can we drop the god jokes? It’s not funny anymore.”

“You started it, West,” he claimed with a smug grin. “I accept your surrender nonetheless.”

“I’m not admitting defeat, I’m asking for a truce!” she argued just before a gust of wind alerted her of Barry’s return.

Twain clung to his arm for a second, but her familiar wide eyes were trained on the time remnant.

“You really can bring him back?” she asked after a moment of tense silence.

“Just like I brought Iris back, yes,” older Barry confirmed before pointing at the projected map over his shoulder. “Ready?” he asked Iris’ doppelgänger.

“I’m not sure if I want to see his grave,” Twain replied quietly as she stared at the map of the Central City cemetery.

“It might help him actually,” younger Barry claimed with a gentle hand on the P.I.’s shoulder. “Waking up next to two doppelgängers sounds a bit—”

“Like an illusion from the Speed Force,” his time remnant completed the sentence with a grimace.

“Yup, sounds about right,” Iris’ fiancé agreed.

“Okay let’s go,” the secret thief changed her mind right away. “I texted Caitlin and Cisco,” she informed Iris. “I didn’t want them to freak out seeing three Barrys when they came back. They’ll want to ask you a lot of questions, but send them to the break room and have them prepare snacks, and maybe Cisco can breach to his old apartment to get the speedster’s moonshine...”

Twain was rambling and smiling widely. Wow. It was weird to think that of a woman who looked exactly like her, but Iris thought that the P.I. looked adorable. 

Both Barrys thought so too, if their twin fond gazes on Iris 51 were any indication.

“You got it,” Iris promised, and in another gust of wind younger Barry and Twain were gone.

The reporter blinked when she saw that older Barry was still there, looking at her even more fondly.

“What?” she asked with a tilt of her head.

She didn’t expect the time remnant to kiss her so passionately, but she gladly return his gesture of affection.

“What was that for?” she asked against his lips when she pulled away but couldn’t go very far because he had his arms tightly wrapped around her.

“For luck,” he replied playfully before giving her an eskimo kiss. 

“You said that bringing back another speedster wouldn’t be as difficult,” Iris recalled hesitantly.

“It won’t,” he confirmed, then kissed her deeply again.

“Well, don’t make my doppelgänger wait,” she chided as she gently shoved him.

He kept his hands on her waist, and a myriad of emotions flitted across his handsome face.

“Thank you Iris,” he told her solemnly.

“For what?” she asked, confused, though she quieted the alarm going off in the back of her head.

He would be fine. It was instinctive for her to worry about Barry whenever he had to use his powers in new ways, but this was the self-proclaimed god of speed. He was more powerful than Iris herself could truly comprehend.

Nothing bad would happen. She forbade the universe to mess with her this time.

“For making me feel like myself again,” he answered, running his hands up her back, around her shoulders to finally frame her face so he could drop his forehead against hers.

A pleasant shiver took over Iris’ body, and she didn’t quiet the soft moan of pleasure that it elicited.

“You’re very welcome,” she replied with a chaste kiss, then she shoved him with a bit more force this time. “Now go,” she ordered him.

He nodded, a small smile on his lips, and without any wind whatsoever he was gone. Iris only felt a faint crackle of electricity in the air.

Earth 51 Caitlin and Cisco basically tumbled into the secret lab, and indeed Iris had to boss them around to prepare their friend’s little welcome party.

“I stopped at three separate Big Belly Burgers to order a true feast as soon as Iris texted us,” Quantum informed as he breached back into the break room with an unlabeled bottle. "Let me go grab a cart for the most convenient pick-up ever. Man, it’s been forever since we celebrated anything!”

The breacher left through another portal, Iris and Caitlin 51 exchanging an amused look behind him.

“It does feel nice to celebrate,” the doctor admitted. “I wasn’t an active part of the team then, but Ronnie would drag me to all Team Flash’s social gatherings. It was a bit ridiculous at times, they’d throw parties for the silliest things, like a mission gone without either Barry or Iris breaking a bone!”

Iris chuckled good-naturedly, but all she could think was that, since knowing Savitar’s identity, Team Flash hadn’t celebrated anything.

She hoped that it would change when they returned to Earth-1.

“And it will be so good to see Iris, I mean Twain, happy again,” Caitlin 51 confessed. “I do know how it feels to lose the love of your life, but I have Cisco now, and it seemed so unfair that she’d lose her fiancé on top of losing her powers and her career. She’s done so much for this city and for this team. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, the two Barrys are the one doing all the work,” Iris objected.

“Twain has been opening up ever since you guys came from Earth-1,” Dr. Snow pointed out. “And you’re the one she spent the most time with, Iris. Also, I’m not certain that Savitar would’ve even thought of bringing back our Barry if you hadn’t been here.”

“Unlike you and your Barry, he’s very good at being emotionally detached. You and your Barry treat Cisco and I like real friends, and you both care a lot about Twain, but Savitar keeps a professional relationship with us. The only time he softens up is when you’re in his line of sight. So yes, please accept our thanks, you deserve them.”

Iris felt herself blush furiously. She’d never thought that her first voluntary multiverse adventure would end up on such a positive note, especially with this world’s fate seeming so bleak for her doppelgänger’s people.

She couldn’t wait to go home and celebrate with her own family and friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was about time this fic earned its Savitar/Iris tag. Feel free to share your opinion on Iris' decision to kiss her killer, or on whether you think that canon Barry would be okay with that.
> 
> Also, my other WA fic is much lighter than this, so if this made you sad you can definitely feel better by reading that other story (Earth-2 AU!)


	12. Another Barry—Barry/Iris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Savitar and Barry bring back E51 Barry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for pseudo necromancy and Speed Force shenanigans.
> 
> There's some non-explicit sex at the end of the chapter, you'll see it coming. It's mostly fluff to balance out the minor angst preceding it.

There was something about cemeteries that made the air around them cold and forbidding.

Or maybe Barry just felt that way because he’d been to too many funerals in his life, to bury people who were supposed to have the rest of theirs to enjoy. His mother, Eddie, Ronnie, his father…

As he glanced at Savitar for the third time in the few minutes they’d been looking at Earth 51 Barry Allen’s tomb, Barry wondered if his time remnant felt fundamentally different about cemeteries, what with his new abilities to defy death.

To Barry, seeing a tombstone with his own name on it was downright creepy.

_Bartholomew Henry Allen_

_March 14, 1989–May 4, 2017_

No special lines, which Barry found sad. Earth 51 Barry was an orphan too, so ‘beloved son’ hadn’t been an option, but any line indicated that someone would miss him would’ve been nice. Twain definitely had, so did Earth 51 Cisco and Caitlin.

Twain was standing on the other side of the tombstone with her back to it.

“May fourth,” Savitar read out with a raised eyebrow. “There’s a joke somewhere.”

Before Barry could ponder the words, his time remnant phased his body, lowering himself into the ground up to his thighs.

Barry followed his lead, and together they phased the coffin out of the earth.

“I feel bad about this, it’s so wrong,” Barry mumbled as the two of them huffed going out of phase one leg at a time to step back onto the ground.

They dropped the heavy object, and Barry winced at his own words as he belatedly remembered that this wasn’t Savitar’s first try at necromancy.

They sped the coffin to the gardener’s shed with some effort—it was surprisingly heavier than Barry had expected— and the younger of the two speedsters told Twain to wait for his signal to come inside.

When the time remnant lifted the lid of the coffin, Barry vaguely noted that it wasn’t made of wood, but some polished marble—no wonder it had been so heavy—lined with silver, and the inside of the coffin was lined with some cushioned fabric.

“Definitely wrong,” Savitar commented as they both stared at their mirror image.

The acrid scent of formaldehyde and a fainter smell of decomposition briefly assaulted Barry’s nose. He looked away from the sickly pale skin of his doppelgänger’s pitted face, focusing instead on the charcoal three-piece suit he’d been dressed in. 

He felt the air vibrate next to him, and when he looked up Barry saw that Savitar was now holding an extra-large cup of a greenish smoothie.

“That bad?” Barry questioned quietly.

“I didn’t put Iris in cryo just for fun,” Savitar replied sarcastically before emptying his cup.

“But he’s a speedster, right?” Barry pointed out. “And is DNA is identical to ours…”

“His human DNA is,” Savitar specified with a side nod, “but yeah I don’t have to bring him back to full health, just jumpstart his body. It looks like it will take more time than bringing back Iris. I might need to borrow your speed force in order not to stop halfway to get more calories.”

That was the greatest number of words Savitar had said to Barry since speaking through Julian, so for a second he didn’t register their meaning.

“Borrow what?” he asked, confused.

Savitar stared at him as if he was crazy, then sighed loudly as he discarded his smoothie cup—where, Barry couldn’t tell.

“The aura that protects you from the effects of going faster than the speed of sound?” the time remnant started.

“Yeah?”

“We speedsters don’t just borrow it from the Speed Force with capital S and F,” Savitar explained as he dropped his hands to his sides, palms facing outwards.

He took a breath, then his lightning emerged, threads of electricity twirling brightly around him.

“We generate some ourselves,” the time remnant added as he nodded at Barry.

Barry called onto his own lightning, and yeah, that lightning was his own, he’d always been aware of that.

“Wait, you’re saying that speedsters can share their speed force?” he questioned his older self. “All this time, Wally and I could’ve shared our powers for one of us to run faster than you?”

“Theoretically, yes,” Savitar answered, “but manipulating someone else’s speed force is not as easy as it sounds. Neither is controlling one’s movements at an unfamiliar speed.”

“My individual speed force doesn’t seem powerful enough to help you,” he let Savitar know.

He generated more energy when he was in motion, but Savitar didn't seem to be similarly limited.

“You’ll need to run a few laps around the cemetery to generate more,” the time remnant instructed.

“Okay,” Barry acknowledged as he set up to run out of the shed.

But a fleeting thought stopped him.

“Iris isn’t a speedster,” he reflected out loud. "So how were you able to use your powers to bring her back?"

“I never said that you can only share your speed force with speedsters,” Savitar told him with a shrug. “You assumed that.”

“So I can, what, make other people go as fast as me?” the younger of the speedsters interrogated. “Create a time bubble around them, like you did for Iris?”

“ _You_ can’t,” Savitar informed him. “Maybe once you get a bit faster you will, but now you don’t generate enough speed force for that. Also, unless they’re speedsters themselves, people in your time bubble would quickly get exhausted. You could only have them keep up with you for a limited amount of time.”

“Flashtime,” Barry coined the concept with a name, his mind exploding with the possibilities of its applications.

“Get going,” Savitar suggested as he turned to face the cadaver Barry had momentarily forgotten. “No need to throw any lightning at me, you just need to make your electricity field wide enough that it connects with mine. Don’t burn anything, and stop running as soon as it feels like I’m syphoning rather than borrowing your speed force.”

“A walk in the park,” Barry drawled before he sprinted outside, notifying Twain on the way. She stepped to the side of the shed to avoid being within reach of the colliding speed forces.

As he started generating an electricity field while running, Barry could feel Savitar’s emanating from the small place.

Barry had felt other speedsters’ powers before: Eobard Thawne’s, Zoom’s, Trajectory’s, Jessie’s, Wally’s, the Rival’s, as well as the powers of his past and future selves.

None of them came close to Savitar's, by light years. It was truly fortunate that he wasn’t actually a villain.

When he lost count of his lapses around the cemetery, Barry felt his speed force collide with that of his time remnant, and for a split second he feared that the collision would create some explosion, but then the two speed forces merged seamlessly.

For a couple minutes Barry just kept running without feeling much other than the intimidating aura of his future self, then he felt his speed force getting drawn away.

The moment Barry started feeling slower than normal he stopped running, making sure to get back to normal speed to invite a nervous-looking Twain inside the shed.

Savitar was on his knees, his weight on his heels, breathing heavily and sweating so much that Barry could detect the wet patches on his black shirt.

Next to him, a live Earth 51 Barry Allen was staring at him, seated in his coffin still, and his wide eyes moved to Barry and Twain when he noticed their presence.

“Iris!” was predictably the first word out of the newly resurrected’ s mouth, his voice slightly squawky.

He then looked between his two doppelgängers as he asked: “Is this some kind of Speed Force heaven?”

“You have a very disturbing idea of heaven,” Savitar commented as he braced himself against the coffin to lift himself back up.

“That’s why I specified _Speed Force_ heaven,” Barry’s doppelgänger defended. “I’ve been there before and it was just as weird as this,” he added as he tentatively bent one knee then the other before bracing his hands on either side of his coffin.

“Easy,” both Twain and Barry instructed, and she rushed towards her lover, offering him a hand.

Earth 51 Barry lit up when he made eye contact with his Iris, and once again Barry was struck with the conviction that no other two people belonged more with each other than Barry Allen and Iris West, regardless of the universe or timeline.

Iris had told him that, on the earth Savitar had kept her for two weeks, Barry Allen had been a criminal and the enemy of Iris West, and had been responsible for her assassination.

Deep in his heart, Barry wanted to figure out what had happened to that pair, because something very _wrong_ must have happened to tear apart his and his fiancée’s doppelgängers on that earth.

Despite his obvious weakened state, the Barry of Earth 51 stood gracefully once he locked arms with his fiancée, his movement not at all reminiscent of Barry’s own clumsiness.

Right. Experienced MMA fighter and highly skilled thief. The man probably didn’t know how to trip.

“I’m ready for one of you to explain where I am if not in the Speed Force, or heaven, or the disturbing combination of both,” the Chemist said as he loosened the tie around his neck, letting out a long sigh.

“This, umm, we,” Barry stuttered, throwing a pleading glance at Savitar, who was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, his breathing almost back to normal.

The time remnant locked eyes with him, then rolled his in dismissal . 

“You died almost two months ago, it’s July second, 2017,” Earth 51 Iris stated flatly.

“What!” Earth 51 Barry exclaimed with wide eyes. “Wait, wait. I remember dying, and I see the coffin but...I feel pretty alive right now?”

“He brought you back,” Barry explained at the same time as Savitar said “we brought you back” and Twain offered “they brought you back.”

“Okay...” the Chemist acknowledged hesitantly, looking back and forth between Barry and Savitar just as he put a hand on his Iris’ shoulder. “And you two are, what? Myself from two different futures? I kinda have a no time travel policy, not that I’m not grateful for being back…”

He froze mid-sentence, then looked down at his his other hand, which was clasped with Twain’s.

“My speed,” he said, electricity showing in his eyes as he stared at Barry. “It’s back.”

The sound of three stomachs growling brought an awkward silence in the shed before Twain laughed harder than Barry had ever seen her laugh.

“Good thing I told Iris to have Cisco and Caitlin prepare for your return,” she said with a giggle.

“There's _another_ _Iris_?” Earth 51 Barry questioned, dumbfounded.

* * *

“Guys?” Cisco 51 called out from his station, drawing out the attention of Iris and Caitlin 51.

Iris was showing the doctor cute summer clothes—though she didn’t seem receptive to her recommendations.

“Everything okay?” Caitlin 51 asked, first to reach the other side of her secret lab.

“They’re on their way!” the engineer replied excitedly.

When the speedsters and Twain arrived, Iris could tell right away that the Barry wearing a dark suit was Twain’s other half. Twain hadn’t lied when she’d told Iris that it was easy to tell the Earth-1 Barrys apart from hers.

This smart-looking Barry had as much charisma as the former cop. He also looked like a man who knew he looked good—not cute-good, but handsome, sexy, Mr. Steal Yo Girl-kinda good.

Twain herself looked so happy, and was Iris imagining it, or was she seeing her doppelgänger glowing?

In fact, everyone was glowing, with different colors on different parts of their bodies.

Oh.

Was that some type of infrared vision? Crazy. 

After the Earth-51 group gathered for a collective hug, Barry 51 lifted and twirled Iris’ doppelgänger around before kissing her lightly, their movement so elegant it looked like they’d been dancing.

The couple laughed happily, clearly resisting the urge to kiss some more in front of everyone. Their friends were gazing at them with so much pride, too.

Gold Standard, indeed. 

Iris observed her Barry peering at their Earth 51 doppelgängers, and as if he’d felt her gaze on him his eyes moved to lock with hers.

 _I know babe_ , _we look good together_ , she thought as she lifted a knowing eyebrow at her fiancé. 

He blinked back then dropped his gaze, rubbing the back of his neck as his cheeks flushed with shyness.

“Man we missed you!” Cisco 51 exclaimed as he stepped towards his best friend again, the two men colliding almost brutally for an individual hug. 

“Caitlin!” Barry 51 exclaimed happily as he hugged the doctor in turn, “it’s so good to see you. I didn’t think you’d stick around after the mess that I made.”

“Trust me, I was tempted to quit more than once,” the brunette joked, “but I had to keep this dork in line,” she added as she side-hugged Cisco 51.

Barry 51 laughed, then looked over his friends’ head to lock eyes with Iris.

The journalist felt herself perk up at the appreciative gaze her fiancé’s doppelgänger gave her, but quickly looked away with a blush when he smiled at her with a an expression she couldn't decipher.

Funnily enough, she caught Barry frowning at his doppelgänger.

Was he jealous? He’d been just fine with her kissing his time remnant, but of course a doppelgänger was a different story.

Speaking of time remnant...

“Where’s Savitar?” Iris heard herself ask—no need to confuse everyone by calling him 'Barry' too—and her shoulders tensed when she saw Barry wince.

“Left the planet already,” Barry 51 informed her casually as he kissed the top of Twain’s head. “Didn’t even want to stay for the Big Belly Burger feast I know Cisco prepared for us.”

“You damn right, I did!” the engineer confirmed enthusiastically.

Iris swallowed down the confusion and sense of loss bubbling in her throat, trying to put up a good front for the celebrating group. 

The way older Barry had lingered and kissed her repeatedly before going to the cemetery, and expressed his heartfelt thank you… Had this been the time remnant’s way of saying goodbye?

She almost gasped in surprise when she felt the arms of her Barry encircling her. She hadn’t felt him coming, though it was clear that he hadn’t used his speed.

“I couldn’t convince him to stay,” her fiancé whispered after kissing her forehead. “I’m so sorry, Iris.”

Barry was sad too, Iris could hear it in his voice, could feel it in the tightness of his hug. She drew strength from the knowledge that she wasn’t alone in her odd grief.

“You guys okay?” Cisco 51 asked quietly, and as one Barry and Iris stepped away from each other to give him unconvincing nods.

“He just went back to Earth-1 right?” the breacher guessed. “You guys have to go, too. Want me to breach you home?”

“No, wait, please,” Barry 51 jumped in, raising the hand that wasn’t around Twain’s waist.

Iris noted the odd look on her doppelgänger’s face. She imagined that the P.I. was gearing up for a long talk with her Barry.

“As I’ve said before, I messed up big time,” Barry 51 stated as he exchanged apologetic looks with his friends and squeezed his Iris against him before dropping his arm from her and walking towards Barry. “I’m not saying that I’m willing to break my own rule about time travel and world crossovers, but I must ask: how is it being a meta-human on your earth?”

“Challenging, but at least I do have my powers,” Barry replied solemnly. “Also, our Central City is nowhere near to having such...totalitarian laws about metas and trans-dimensional travel. My team and I are okay on that front.”

“The Flash and his meta-human friends are considered heroes on our earth,” Iris made sure to point out, and something petty in her lit up at seeing the eyes of Barry 51 sparkle with admiration and yes, a little bit of envy. That was a nice turnaround, as Barry had admitted experiencing a slight complex of inferiority towards the man who had managed to be with his Iris since high school.

“I’ve made mistakes though,” Barry quickly added as he rubbed his hand up and down Iris’ arm. “Terrible ones, which have cost the lives of family members and friends. I’ve tried to go back in time enough times to let you know that you are right to stick to your rule. There’s always a way of fixing things in the present timeline. Think outside the box but stay true to your heart and moral values.”

“After last night, Central City is bound to see you guys differently,” Iris pointed out as she nodded to N, Quantum and Dr. Snow. “You used your powers to keep criminals in check and rush people to hospitals. I’m sure that before the city even think of installing new routers for the meta-dampening signal, the public opinion of Team Flash will have changed.”

“What if it doesn’t?” Twain argued, her voice smaller than Iris had ever heard it. “We tried _so hard_ for so long to have them accept us—”

“The Kobras being in jail will help a lot,” Iris asserted.

She’d read as many news articles about meta-humans as she was able to in the weeks she’d spent on this earth, and the most extreme opinions were all in reaction to the evil speedsters’ crimes. Before Kobra had stolen Barry 51's speed, the media had broadcasted a great sense of confidence that the police could handle meta-human threats.

“Both of them are imprisoned now, but it wouldn’t hurt to keep a couple syphons ready in case they escape,” Barry jumped in, “plus there might be more ill-intended speedsters still out there. A more extreme way to deal with them and other criminal metas would be to weaponize the meta-cure. I think it’s very much acceptable to take away powers from people who’d rather use them to harm than to help.”

“Agreed,” Barry 51 said with a small smile. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for that Big Belly Burger feast!”

“After you,” Barry replied with a laugh.

Iris had most definitely never eaten so much in her life, and after genuinely enjoying the company of their doppelgänger friends, she and Barry decided to enjoy an unsurprising food coma before Cisco 51 breached them back to Earth-1.

Well, the plan had been to rest, but they ended up making love. It was slow and sad, but cathartic.

“You know, you could talk to him through me,” Barry encouraged after he kissed Iris' drying tears away.

“He can only see your memories if you are on Earth-1 or if you’re both in the same parallel universe,” Iris reminded him. “Which I doubt will happen soon. And I think that he hates looking into your memories.”

“Maybe he did when you were right there next to him and he could make his own new memories of you, but not now that you’re apart,” Barry insisted with a kiss on each of her eyelids. “But you don’t have to say anything right now.”

“I do want to say something,” Iris confessed, “to you,” she added.

“I’m all ears, Iris,” Barry replied with a crooked smile.

“Thank you,” she said as she held his gaze, “for being okay with me spending time with Savitar. You know, he actually said that he wasn’t Savitar anymore, that he’d stopped feeling broken so he was fine being called Barry again.”

“All thanks to you,” Barry claimed softly just as his large hand caressed the outside of the leg she had bent over his, from her calf to her hips and back again, the movement soothing her nerves.

“I know you justified it with him being your future self, but he’s his own person too, so I know it couldn’t have been easy—” Iris started but trailed off with a sigh as Barry’s fingers traced over the other side of her leg, slowly inching towards her inner thigh.

“Iris, I promise, I didn’t mind,” Barry insisted before kissing her nose, “especially after,” then her right cheek, “I saw my doppelgänger,” then the right corner of her lips, “look at you like _that_ ,” he finished before pulling her closer with his other hand to kiss her deeply.

“Like what?” Iris asked when he pulled away to kiss her jaw.

She had avoided Barry 51’s gaze at the time, but hadn’t been able to tell herself _why_. Barry's insight could give her an answer.

She momentarily forgot to care about that intensely mysterious look from the Chemist because of the combined pleasure from having Barry’s lips flutter on her neck and his fingers run along her labia.

“Bartholomew Henry Allen!” she chided as she forced herself to bat his hand away from her. “I asked you a question! Your doppelgänger looked at me like _what_?”

She glared at the pouty face her fiancé made, and was relieved to see him roll away from her with a sigh after a few seconds of staring contest because she was actually very _weak_ to Barry Allen making that dejected puppy face.

“Like he wouldn’t mind checking for himself how different you are from Twain—from his Iris,” Barry finally answered with a scowl, and for a second Iris giggled because Barry was so _cute_ when he was jealous.

Then she understood the implication of his words.

“Wait, what? How do you know that? Is that how you felt about Iris on Earth-2?” she asked him in a mild panic, which Barry’s frown was quick to dissipate.

“What? No!” her fiancé answered firmly. “Come on Iris, I was a bit carried away in Earth-2 but I never thought to do anything with her. I mean, she was married. I just think that my doppelgänger fancied you for a second because, well you're more... I'm not sure how to say it without being offensive to Twain. I know that she looks exactly like you so of course she’s gorgeous, but she is more...Austere? Her overall personality is less...Light? Sunny? Which isn't helped by her utilitarian wardrobe. How many grey shirts does she own?”

“Iknowright!” the reporter let out in one breath before giggling again. “I mean, I thought that it was because of her grief, what with losing her father and fiancé and living in a dystopian universe, but I peeked into her closet, and it’s not like she had anything nicer that she’d just stopped wearing. _That’s_ her style. She showed me pictures of happier times, and the only difference is that she smiled more.”

“I’ve always admired your great sense of fashion,” Barry admitted, “but now I realize that I’ve been taking it for granted. _Never again_.”

“Barry 51, on the other side,” Iris commented, making sure to add a dreamy tone to her voice just to annoy her future husband.

She couldn’t help but laugh at Barry’s glare.

“Hey, I’ve always told you how nicely you clean up!” she defended as she inched closer to her fiancé. “But I like your style Barry, it’s very much _you_. And deep down I’m glad that your clothes aren’t drawing even more attention to you than your natural good looks already are. I get jealous, you know? I can’t wait for us to get married so your wedding band can repel all these women with good tastes.”

“And I can’t wait for us to get married so we can go on a month-long honeymoon somewhere isolated, where no man other than me will have the pleasure of looking at you,” Barry confessed as his hand returned to her inner thigh, more boldly this time.

“Well, I don’t think that such a place exists,” Iris challenged as she fought off the moans her future husband’s fingers were eliciting. “Most vacation resorts do have more females than males among their staff, but the valets and security officers—as well as the better-paid managers—tend to be men.”

“Actually, Ray told Cisco that anyone in the team could visit this private island in the Pacific that he owns,” Barry informed her as he nuzzled her collarbone. “He has a very well-equipped, self-sufficient villa there. We just have to ask Felicity…”

“I forgot that you have filthy rich friends,” the journalist managed to say before gasps and moans were pulled from her throat by her fiancé’s ministrations.

She really couldn’t wait to go home and finally become Iris West-Allen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are very much appreciated!
> 
> Unless I re-write a lot of it while editing, next chapter will have the last Cisco POV and the fluff I promised, but also some plot. You thought it was over, didn't you?
> 
> Also, check out my Earth-2 AU fanfic if you want more WestAllen! It is much lighter than this!


	13. Another Toast—Cisco(Vibe)/Barry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry and Iris get back to Earth-1.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised an update on this one before s6 starts, and it feels good to keep that promise!  
> However, I also promised a fluff chapter and I'm not too sure that I delivered. Tell me what you think please!

"Cisco, hey, Cisco!" Caitlin's voice broke through the fog of the engineer's sleepy mind.

"Five more minutes, darling," he mumbled in the space between his folded arms and his desk.

His own words shocked him awake, and he abruptly sat up in his chair.

 _Darling_ , really Ramon? Ugh. You're supposed to have more suave than that.

He eyed his kinda-still new girlfriend, who had that patient smile plastered on her pretty face, the one that said that she only forgave his blunders because she loved him.

Because she was in love with him. Him, Francisco Rodriguez Ramon Alvarez, the king of nerds, the guy the most awkward in the body on this side of the multiverse—it used to be Barry, but ever since he got with Iris the son of a gun had gained unprecedented control of his stupidly long limbs and mouth and Cisco _didn't need to know_ how that happened—and the lousiest boyfriend because this was the third night in a row that he fell asleep at S.T.A.R. Labs instead of in their bed ( _Caitlin_ 's bed, which was a queen, much more shareable than Cisco's twin sized one).

"What time is it?" he asked sheepishly before passing the back of his hand over his mouth—no drool, _thank God_.

"Eight in the morning," Cait answered as she started walking backwards to the door of his workshop. "I left you cherry pop tarts if you're interested… But you might not care about food yet."

"There's nothing I care about more than high sugar snacks for my ever growing brain," the young genius joked then remembered that his priority were supposed to have changed in the past couple months. "I mean, other than you, of course!"

"Nice save," his girlfriend acknowledged with a tilted nod and an amused smile. "But now I feel bad telling Barry and Iris that they come _after_ refined carbs."

"They're back!" Cisco exclaimed with a hop, almost hurting himself as he shot out of his chair to hug Caitlin in elation.

Very much aware of his morning breath, he kissed her cheek instead of her lips before grabbing her hand and pulling her towards the Cortex.

The rest of the team was already gathered around Cisco's stranded friends.

"Took you long enough!" Joe was telling them after squeezing Iris in a bear hug.

“We were worried for weeks until Cisco vibed you and said you were fine,” Wally informed them, his arm still clasped with Barry’s. “He said that it looked like you were working with his, Iris’ and Caitlin’s doppelgängers? That’s dope!”

“Yes, how was it working with an equally cool version of me for once?” Cisco asked as he approached the returned West-Allen pair.

“It was really hard seeing him as a doppelgänger, actually, he was _that_ awesome,” Barry flattered him as he stepped away from Wally to wrap his long arms around him. “The only big difference was that his codename is Quantum, and he hadn’t used his powers for two years. He did admit that Vibe was a great name too.”

“Really, that’s the big difference?” the breacher asked skeptically. “I didn’t see much, but I’d hoped you’d tell me more about him—about all of them on Earth 51?” 

“Maybe, _maybe_ he was a bigger nerd,” Iris offered as she pulled away from hugging Caitlin. “But Caitlin 51 was the one who's a bit more different. Dr. Snow works for Tannhauser industries there.”

Well, _that_ was surprising, though here on Earth-1 Cait was mending her strained relationship with her mother, so why not?

“I did? I mean, she did?” Cisco’s girlfriend asked.

Oh, their doppelgängers were probably not together on Earth-51. That was a given, right? Working a real job meant that Caitlin’s doppelgänger could meet real people so she wouldn’t even think of dating her Cisco.

“Yes, she has a whole building named after her, and a few floors with restricted access—Team Flash’s HQ was actually there,” Iris added with a nod, but when Caitlin looked down, probably feeling unaccomplished compared to her Earth-51’s counterpart, Iris tilted her head to catch her gaze. “Buuuut, huge but girl, seriously: she has no sense of fashion.”

“What?” both Cisco and Caitlin exclaimed.

“Neither does my doppelgänger, but that I could tolerate," Iris confided dramatically. "Seeing a woman who looked and acted so much like you—she’d taken the cure, too!—wear grey and white shirts and brown pants and _flats_ though? By the way, now I know that I’m one inch taller, girlfriend…”

The two women exploded in a fit of giggles, and okay, Cisco was fine with the levity there, but he was still skeptical about being almost identical to his version of Earth-51.

“Oh! Your doppelgängers are together there, actually,” Iris said more seriously as she let go of Caitlin and looked back and forth between Cisco and Caitlin, waving a hand between them. “I mean, circumstances are very different for them, so I’m not saying it to make weird between you two, I mean Cisco you’ve been to another earth, you know how things are—but yeah, better say it now rather than in the middle of a detailed story… What is it babe?”

Barry had started chuckling, and Cisco noticed how apart from Julian, everyone else looked at Iris with knowing looks and amused smiles.

“We are together here too, actually,” Caitlin let Miss West know with a blush.

“What! Since when?” the journalist asked with wide eyes and a growing smile as she surveyed the room before staring at Caitlin again. “I die for two weeks and you get yourself a boyfriend!”

“Too soon, Sis, too soon!” Wally complained, Joe grunting his assent.

“It’s been two months since you’ve been declared dead, actually,” Mr. West senior reminded his daughter. “How are we going to explain that to everyone? Do we blame it on a meta-human attack?”

“Never been happier for the weirdness we live in on a daily basis,” Iris admitted with a sigh, and Cisco saw her hand reaching back just in time to catch the one Barry was reaching towards her when he stepped sideways to look at Joe. Neither of them had been looking at the other, they were just telepathically linked or something. Freaking relationship goals, these two. Ugh.

“Speaking of meta-human,” Barry said as he looked down at his fiancée, lifting his eyebrows at her.

“Oh,” she reacted mildly with a slow blink, before looking at her father. “Right. Err...I got powers now?”

“What!?” Cisco, Wally and Joe exclaimed simultaneously, though the latter didn’t seem excited by the news at all.

“Which powers? Are you a speedster too?” the youngest of the Wests asked as he shuffled closer to his sister. “Our brother-sister crime fighting unit is gonna be a real thing, after all!”

“Not a speedster, no,” Iris replied with a shake of her head—nice curls, by the way—before pointing at her eyes with two fingers of the same hand. “I can see electromagnetic radiation from infrared to gamma rays, with the special ability to focus on objects emitting or reflecting light in ranges close to the visible spectrum.”

“Come again?” Joe asked with his I-don’t-get-all-that-science-mumbo-jumbo-dumb-it-down-for-me expression.

“I know, right,” Iris spoke again with a chuckle, “Barry had to repeat it like five times before I got it right.”

“Don’t forget the fast-healing powers, too,” Barry added, and _that_ made Joe perk up.

“Oh, that’s great,” the detective announced, not hiding his relief at all. “But don’t use it as an excuse to run into danger, now!”

“Hey, I need to get back out there!” the journalist objected. “I haven’t written an article in ages, and now that I can see all these types of radiations, I could tackle that story of the gentrification of the old industrial zone on the North side…”

“Okay, well, I need to go back to the precinct,” Joe interrupted before pointing at Barry, “and you still have three weeks of paid leave, but I’d advised against using it all at once. You coming, Albert?”

“What did Captain Singh say?” the CSI inquired, looking between Joe and Julian.

“He’s glad that you finally took some time to grieve,” the detective informed him.

“I’ve managed very well without you, so, no rush,” the supervisor CSI assured with a dismissive hand as he walked backward towards the exit of the Cortex. “Good to have you two back!”

“Please, do take a couple days to rest?” Mr. West begged Iris as he kissed her hair. “After all Savitar put you through, then Earth-51… Just take it easy, baby girl.”

“By the way, any sign of Savitar?” Iris asked to no one in particular once her father had left, but her inquisitive gaze fell on Cisco.

“Why would he show up here?” Harry asked skeptically as he walked back to a board to finish solving an equation.

“Oh, hey! How’s the sonar coming along?” Barry asked Cisco. “Sorry we took so long to return.”

Had their team leader just changed subjects? Fine by the engineer, as talking about the time remnant was bound to give him a headache.

To be sure, Cisco was grateful that Savitar had somehow saved Iris, cured Caitlin and somehow made Cisco himself act on his repressed feelings for Caitlin. But the breacher still found the speedster from the future a bit creepy.

“It’s ready for testing whenever you’re up to it,” Caitlin let him know. “Which shouldn’t be today, you two are going to get some rest, then come back here in the morning for a full battery of tests.”

“Me too? I’m fine!” Iris promised with innocent eyes, and Cisco shook his head at her.

No attempt could ever get anyone out of Dr. Snow’s medical examinations.

“Nine A.M. sharp, guys,” Caitlin instructed the couple with a stern look. “Now shoo! Go home. I fed McSnurtle while you were away but it’s clear that she’s been missing you.”

“Aww, McSnurtle!” Barry exclaimed. “We’re such bad pet keepers, I completely forgot about her. Shall we?” he asked the future Mrs. West-Allen, dropping a kiss on the hand that was still in his.

“Guys, dinner at the loft some time this week to celebrate changing the future?” Iris asked around. “Any news of H.R.?”

“That moron has actually been smart to stay away from here,” Harry answered as he briefly looked at her over his shoulder.

“Okay, so raincheck until we hear from him and Tracy then,” the resurrected woman decided before wrapping her arms around Barry, who easily lifted her. “See you tomorrow!”

“No crime-fighting at all today Barry, I’m serious!” Caitlin insisted before the crack of the Scarlet Speedster’s lightning resonated in the room.

“Business’ slow anyway,” Wally pointed out as he checked the main monitor. “Imma go study for my finals. Peace out!”

More hair whipping, and Cisco rolled his eyes as he tucked some behind his ears, which allowed him to gaze at his lovely girlfriend.

“Wanna go home now that we don’t have to wait for them to return?” Caitlin asked with a hopeful smile.

“Yeah, my back couldn’t have taken one more night of sleeping in my workshop anyway,” the breacher confessed. “Harry, you’re fine holding the fort?”

“I’m the only one who’s been doing anything remotely useful, here,” the genius from Earth-2 claimed haughtily.

“Whatever man,” Cisco replied tiredly before extending his hand towards Caitlin, but she was already walking ahead of him out of the Cortex.

Oh well, Barry and Iris were _Barry and Iris_. Not everyone could be the Gold Standard.

* * *

H.R. showed up on the third day after Barry and Iris’ return from Earth-51.

Or, rather, Barry visited Tracy’s place and informed them both of Iris’ return, and that they were both invited to the loft for the celebration dinner.

It had taken Barry’s full power of persuasion to make Iris use catering service rather than make him cook everything from scratch under her strict supervision—or worse, make Iris herself cook under no one’s supervision.

“Twain can cook,” the speedster’s fiancée had mumbled as they called every place with catering services in Central City with the hope to get one that would agree with the three-day notice.

Interestingly, Barry had easily put Earth-51 behind him. Once he and Iris were done recounting their time on the other planet, he’d let go of the envy he’d felt for his doppelgänger.

So what if he hadn’t dated Iris since high school, or he wasn’t an accomplished fighter? He’d still ended up engaged to Iris, and was considered a hero rather than a criminal on his earth. When it was all said and done, Barry Allen had a good life.

Granted, he had lost both his parents brutally at the hands of evil speedsters, and for months had feared that he would lose Iris to a third speedster in the most nightmarish way.

But Savitar had meant to save Iris from the start—obviously, because he was Barry himself, and Barry could never want to harm Iris.

Barry felt slightly angry at himself for not trying to reason with Savitar back then, for not bringing up the fact that they both loved Iris too much to let the timeline repeat itself. He had been so disturbed by facing this dark version of himself, the side that he knew lurked in the most remote corner of his heart, that he’d refused to talk things through with someone he actually understood perfectly, someone who’d live exactly through everything he had, someone who couldn’t have made it this far if Iris West hadn’t been in his life.

Now it seemed that it was too late to reach out to Savitar, but Barry still had the rest of his life to cherish every moment with the love of his life. He wasn’t going to waste hours of it cutting veggies and stirring pots.

He spent them cuddling with Iris while they looked for venues for their wedding reception after Mama Chow came through for them.

They’d both decided on Jitters’ rooftop for the ceremony. It would be a tight fit if everyone they invited showed up, but Barry and Iris knew that it would never happen: most of the people they wanted to share their happiness with were members of some crime-fighting unit who couldn’t take whole days off because crime didn’t either.

So the couple was betting everything on the reception. Iris’ standards were so high, however, that they couldn’t agree on anything, and were still looking on the night of the dinner.

“You know that you could hire a wedding planner, right?” Cecile suggested as she graciously took the flute of champagne Barry handed her.

“That’s what I keep telling Iris,” the speedster informed with a shrug as he passed on the next two flutes to Joe and Wally.

“Let me guess: she worries that she won’t have enough control over the _whole_ event,” Joe said with a fond shake of his head.

“I heard that!” Iris said from the kitchen, where she was checking on the delivered food.

The collective chuckle in the living room was interrupted by the doorbell.

Barry sped to the door, and couldn’t hide his smile when he opened it on Tracy Brand and a fidgety H.R. 

“So glad that you made it, guys,” the speedster told them sincerely as a greeting. “Please, come in!”

"Thank you for having us," the writer said sheepishly. "I don't deserve it..."

"Of course you do H.R.," Barry insisted at the same time as Tracy nudged the Wells from Earth-19.

The couple had barely passed him their coats when Iris came seemingly out of nowhere to throw herself at Wells.

“Thank you for coming,” she said with happy emotion in her voice as she pulled away from the writer to hug the scientist in turn. “Come on in! Barry ordered food from Mama Chow’s, but it’s not all Chinese, and I know you’re allergic to seashells, Tracy, so...”

Barry followed behind his fiancée and their last guests. Once everyone had champagne in their hands, he and Iris naturally found their spot at each other’s sides by the fireplace, facing everyone: Joe, Wally, Cecile, Harry, Julian, Caitlin, Cisco, Tracy and H.R.

“A toast,” Barry started, “to family, to Team Flash, which are one and the same to me, to _us_ ,” he spared a quick glance at Iris, who was looking up at him with pride and happiness.

“This team was created when the impossible became a daily phenomenon in Central City,” he reminded his audience solemnly. “It was created to stop meta-humans from hurting innocent people. It started as an unpaid job, a duty. However, and it took me a while to realize it, this team has become the main reason why I’m still the Flash. It’s made of people who inspire me to be the best version of myself I can be, of people who help me figure out how to keep the city safe with their brilliant minds, fierce sense of justice and outstanding creativity. It’s made of people I love and respect and cherish every second spent together.”

Barry took a break to make eye contact and exchange a fond smile with everyone, and wrapped an arm around Iris who immediately snuggled by his side.

“Some of us are meta-humans,” he resumed, “others are geniuses. At the end of the day, we’re still _humans_. We’re not perfect, we’re not infaillible, we’re not invincible—though it feels pretty close when I’m out there with Kid Flash and Vibe, the rest of the team in our ears, Joe and the CCPD securing the perimeter, and Iris already halfway through an article praising our heroism.”

Chuckles and laughter and Cisco’s “hear, hear!” resonated in the room.

“We’re not perfect, and that’s okay,” the speedster added. “We have each other: one’s strengths complement the other’s weaknesses, one pair of eyes catch what another missed, one voice of reason quiets the voices of pessimism, one group hug reminds all of us that we’re not alone when we feel the weight of the world on our shoulders.”

Barry felt everyone soften at the words, and he himself felt tears gathering in his eyes.

“And because we have each other, we’re still able not only to tackle the impossible on a regular basis, but we’re able to do it without losing ourselves. It’s not our powers or our intellect that make a difference, it’s the fact that we care about each other while we strive to do our best.”

“This improvised speech is getting longer than I planned it to be,” Barry admitted with a short laugh that was echoed by his loved ones, “so I’ll end it the way I started it: a toast to family, to Team Flash.”

“To Team Flash!” everyone cheered as one with raised glasses.

“That was a great speech babe,” Iris praised him quietly as she lifted off her toes to kiss his cheek.

Merriment was flowing easily as the group shared stories about mundane events, most of them happening while Barry and Iris were away on Earth-51.

It felt cozy, and warm, and Barry couldn’t wait to host another—likely shorter—celebration with the additional presences of Jesse and Jay in a few days. The sonar only needed a few tweaks now that it had been tested on Barry.

“Hey man,” Cisco called him while he was in the kitchen digging in for seconds (more like fifths, but no one was counting) and Barry immediately heard the nervousness in his friend’s voice.

“Hey, what’s up?” he asked cheerfully to encourage the other meta to speak his mind.

“So,” the young genius started as he refilled his own plate, most likely to stay busy and put up a front for the rest of the team, “I didn’t want to bring it up back when we still thought that Iris was gone…”

“Bring what up?” Barry casually prompted after the few seconds of silence trailing after his friend’s words, shoving a few cheese wontons in his mouth.

“Might as well be blunt, right?” Cisco pep-talked himself before blurting out “how do nerds like us date women out of our leagues after being in the friend zone for years?”

Barry felt his eyebrows lift, but quickly gave his friend and teammate a sympathetic smile.

“Aren’t you already dating Caitlin, though?” he teased. “It’s been two months now…”

“You _know_ what I mean, muchacho,” Cisco replied with narrow eyes.

Barry let the engineer fidget a bit longer as he stared at him with a poker face.

“Come on, man!” Vibe whined. “Yeah, we’re great together, nothing to complain about on my side, but I just feel like… I’m not making things worth her while? She could have any man she wanted, and she picked me—maybe because the only other guy around for nine days was a necromantic speed god... _Speed God_! See, told him that I’d come up with a better name—so how do I show her that she made the right decision?”

Barry had taken advantage of Cisco’s rambling to wipe off a whole plate of chow mein.

“First of all, be yourself,” the engaged man advised seriously. “Like you said, she chose _you_ , so trust that she’s not asking for something out of your comfort zone. Unless it is within _her_ comfort zone.”

“Don’t do that,” Cisco pleaded curtly.

“Do what?”

“Talk like you understand women,” the breacher specified as he waved his hand in front of Barry with a disapproving frown. “We’re not supposed to understand them. Science doesn’t apply to these creatures.”

“While that’s true some times,” the speedster conceded with a tilt of his head and an amused grin, “most of the time women are just like us. Did you not hear my amazing speech about all of us being human?”

“Forgot that you’re a feminist,” Cisco mumbled as he chewed on the broccoli pierced on his fork.

“Womanist,” Barry corrected, “but seriously man, just be you. I’ve seen you with Caitlin. You’re great. My three fool-proof rules though? One: if you see something that affordable that you believe she’ll find pretty, buy it for her; two: don’t let her go hungry—ask her if she's eaten if you’re not sure, but _do not_ let her go hungry; three: oral isn’t foreplay, it’s an art form. Hone your craft as often as possible.”

Actually, Barry thought that oral was a ritual that required religious dedication, but he knew that Cisco had a shaky relationship with his faith so the wording wasn’t very appropriate.

He’d expected Cisco to choke on his vegetables, so had a glass of water ready when he did.

“I can’t believe you just said that with a straight face and at normal volume when any of the _four_ women in the place could have walked in here,” the engineer complained after he took a calming sip.

“You asked for my advice, I gave it,” Barry reminded him with a shrug as he eyed the last pieces of fried chicken at the bottom of a pan.

Had Iris gotten her second serving of those? Should he save her what was left or could he finish that and play coy when his fiancée complained about it after everyone left?

“Okay, actually, thanks, I do appreciate it,” Cisco told him with a little blush.

Barry knew that he’d done his duty—Caitlin and Cisco were like siblings to him, so that conversation was not one he would’ve sought out himself, but it was about his best friends’ happiness so he’d done his part—when the engineer piled up food on a separate plate and left the kitchen likely to give it to Caitlin.

“What did you say to him that made him blush so furiously that I didn’t need to use infrared vision to see his cheeks heating up?” he heard Iris ask him before he felt her wrap her arms around his waist from behind.

“Gave him dating advice,” Barry answered truthfully as he offered her a piece of chicken with his hand when she slid up to stand by his side.

“You’re the best fiancé _ever_ so he better have listened,” she flattered him as she opened her mouth to accept the food.

When Iris licked the sauce off his fingers, the speedster had to remind himself that they had _company_ so he couldn’t just speed them to the bedroom.

“Deep fried chicken is the best,” his fiancée reflected out loud, oblivious to his arousal. “The chicken in the lo mein wasn’t thoroughly cooked, I had to throw away like, half of the pan. I need to practice how to completely switch off these powers or I won’t be able to enjoy the simple pleasures of life.”

“I thought you’d eaten all that, which I realize is impossible because you’re not a speedster,” Barry said, grateful for the distraction.

“Thank goodness,” Iris replied with a sigh. “I don’t plan on suiting up like Cisco wants me to, so I only have to make sure I get enough sleep or avoid emotional breakdowns if I don’t want to live off those energy bars.”

“I can’t believe how disgusting they made them on Earth-51,” Barry commented off-handedly.

He immediately sensed the shift in Iris’ mood, though she tried to hide it by cleaning up the kitchen.

“I will do that when everyone leaves,” the speedster promised as he put his hands on her shoulders to gently stop her movements. “What’s wrong?” he asked after kissing her hair.

She’d been wearing her natural curls more often than not ever since their reunion on Earth-51, and Barry wondered if it was some sort of symbolism for her new life.

“Nothing,” she lied unconvincingly.

“Iris,” he insisted as he turned her to face him. “Talk to me.”

“I’m happy,” his fiancée said unexpectedly, her voice full of emotion.

Barry believed her. He himself was the happiest he’d ever been, much happier than he thought he’d ever be since losing his father.

But there was something dampening his happiness, and he knew that it was equally dampening hers too.

“Savitar?” he asked, then corrected himself “I mean, future me. Time remnant Barry. Huh.”

“I know,” Iris sympathized with a chuckle. “In my head you’re Bear and he’s Barry. Not very helpful though.”

As soon as he’d gotten Caitlin’s approval, Barry had searched the earth for his time remnant, but hadn’t found him.

With the way the former Savitar could basically teleport it was impossible to say for sure, but Barry had a feeling that the faster speedster wasn’t on Earth-1.

Maybe he’d returned to the earth he’d taken Iris all these weeks ago.

“Did he ever tell you which earth he took you to?” he therefore asked his future wife.

 _Future wife_. Iris was the love of his life, who had accepted to spend the rest of hers with his.

Was Barry truly willing to sacrifice the most uncomplicated part of his world by looking for someone who was himself but also his own entity and definitely competition for Iris’ affection?

Well, not competition per se. Iris couldn’t possibly love one of them better, as it was clear that she barely made a distinction between them.

But how was his marriage with Iris supposed to work if there were _two_ of him?

“Earth-572,” Iris replied with a frown after a long pause. “I thought of asking if you could risk getting me their coffee. It’s the best I’ve ever tasted, but I have no idea what brand he used, and cross-world travels are banned there too. There's no meta-dampening signal, though, just a very aggressive anti-meta human task force.”

“Okay,” Barry acknowledged before briefly brushing his lips against hers. “Wanna talk about it after everyone leave?”

“Talk about crossing worlds illegally for coffee?” Iris asked, confused. “No, Barry, that’s fine, I’m satisfied with Jitter’s premium roast, really.”

“You’re the only person in the Multiverse who’d think of planning a trans-dimensional coffee heist,” the speedster joked as he pulled her towards the living room.

Maybe his other self wasn’t on that planet, maybe he and Iris would never see him ever again.

He still had to look for him. One last time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've neglected this fic a bit, so maybe I've lost my mojo on it? I finally decided on an end, so the final two chapters should get done soon, but who knows.  
> 
> 
> Feedback will definitely help! Your comments count, not always in ways that satisfy everyone, but they do! Thank you for sticking with this story.


	14. Another Victory—Barry/Iris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Flash tries to get Jay Garrick out of the Speed Force. It doesn't go as planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Penultimate chapter! 
> 
> I've labored to get this posted before s6 kickstarts. I'm satisfied with it (for now), but please point out sentences that don't make sense. I've edited this so much that my eyes hurt.
> 
> A couple warnings apply, please check the end notes!
> 
> Also, PLEASE leave me a feedback for this chapter. Even a one-word comment or an emoji will count.

"Ready?" Barry asked rhetorically.

Of course they were all ready. Cisco and Harry had been working on the intra-dimensional quantum sonar for two months now, and Caitlin had helped Barry reset its converted genetic sequence to match Jay's.

Harry flipped the safety of the cannon. Cisco lifted a thumbs up in the air. Caitlin and Julian nodded. Wally pulled his cowl over his face. H.R. and Tracy were watching from behind the speed tracks, safe behind the glass.

This was it. They were about to fix their collective mistake of letting Savitar manipulate them with the Philosopher Stone.

"Fire it," Barry gave the signal, and Wells pulled the primary trigger to create a controlled singularity.

The portal was too small at first, but it enlarged until it looked as big as one of Cisco's breaches. Harry then pulled the secondary trigger to launch the quantum frequency. 

Both Barry and Wally winced at the sound of the launch, but it seemed that only speedsters could hear it since the others only looked at them with surprise.

The portal got even wider, and after a whole minute of nothing happening—during which both Barry and Wally felt compelled to go look for the other speedster themselves—the silhouette of someone walking out of the portal appeared.

Then a flash of lightning zapped into the room, and Jay Garrick was staring at them.

"What's going on?" the older superhero questioned with a frown before gaping at the portal behind him.

"The portal is about to collapse," Harry warned.

"Now, Cisco!" Barry signaled, and the engineer used a canon of his own to launch a quark sphere containing Jay's DNA.

Just as it passed the shiny surface of the portal, the portal winked out of existence.

"We did it!" Cisco exclaimed, and for a chaotic minute the team was hugging out their success. It took another minute for Barry and Harry to explain their plan to Jay.

"Iris and Joe are waiting for us at the loft with refreshments and Big Belly Burger," Barry reminded the team.

"I'll go pick up Jesse," Wally announced before speeding away.

Cisco breached everyone to the loft, and another round of hugs broke out when Iris and Joe saw everyone. Wally and Jesse made it on time to get crushed into her tight embrace before they all served themselves to food and drinks.

"I'm not making a speech this time," Barry declared when Cisco and Caitlin simultaneously requested a toast.

"I can do that," Jay volunteered as he stepped to the side so that he could face everyone.

The speedster from Earth-3 gave a wide smile to the whole room, and Barry felt Iris' hand gently rub his back just as his chest ached at the happy expression on the face of his father's doppelganger.

"To perseverance," Jay started as he slightly lifted his glass, "to never giving up even when the odds are oppressively against us, when the enemy isn't just physical but metaphysical."

"To resilience," the older speedster added as he tipped his glass in Iris' direction. "I don't know the full story yet dear, but your very presence is a testimony of your strength and resourcefulness. I imagine that Savitar didn't anticipate that you would put up a fight."

"That he did not!" Cisco commented with a laugh before pointing a finger at Iris. "Miss West, pardon me, future Mrs. _West-Allen_ , the day you single-handedly neutralized the God of Speed with nothing but a broken gadget and your fist shall go down in the archives of the Flash museum."

"Yours truly shall make it so!" H.R. promised with a grin.

Before laughter could take over the room Barry cleared his throat and everyone focused back on Jay, who gave him a nod and one-sided smile.

But when the older speedster opened his mouth, his face got illuminated by a flash of light seconds before the loudest clap of thunder resonated outside.

"What?" Many among the group exclaimed as they all turned to the windows.

"No," Barry heard himself whisper as he stood in front of Iris, halfway shielding her from witnessing the gradual chaos raging in the sky.

"The forecast definitely predicted clear skies tonight," Julian shared uselessly.

"No joke, Sherlock!" Cisco replied angrily while opening a breach.

"Guys, stay here, okay?" Barry requested to the rest of the team as another frightening boom of thunder vibrated in the air.

"Like hell I will," Harry argued as he stepped closer to his daughter.

"I'm coming with you too!" Iris demanded, gripping his arm with both hands before he could speed away.

Barry made it to S.T.A.R. Labs with her right after Cisco and Caitlin but before Wally with Joe and Jesse with Harry, Jay Garrick arriving last in his Flash suit.

"Jay, no, _please_ ," Barry begged with a hand extended to his father's doppelganger. "We'll figure something else..."

"Before or after your city gets shredded by this speed force storm, kiddo?" The older speedster asked sadly. "We don't have a choice here."

"Yes we do, there are literally _four_ speedsters here!" Wally intervened. "And in case you don't remember, this is _my_ fault. I'm the one who wanted to be a speedster at any cost, well now I need to live with the consequences of my wishes."

"Guys!" Caitlin and Cisco shouted with alarming synchronicity.

Barry refrained from asking _what again?_

The engineer typed on the main monitor's keyboard to display the video feed of the speed lab.

"No!" Iris exclaimed hoarsely just as Barry's mind made sense of what Cisco was showing them. 

His time remnant was looking at the intra-dimensional sonar, probably trying to figure out how to operate it. 

"Wait!" Barry told him when he skidded across the floor of the speed lab.

"Good timing," the former Savitar commented casually as he placed the cannon into Barry's arms. "That still counts as doing it myself, I guess. Hurry."

"Did you just crack a joke?" Cisco asked upon exiting his breach. "I can't tell with your poker face."

"Does it seem like the time to have pointless discussions?" future Barry asked back with an eye roll before pointing at Barry. "Come on!"

"There's gotta be another way!" Barry shouted as his fingers inched towards the primary trigger anyway.

"Let him pay for what he's done," Joe recommended as he arrived with Wally, and Barry was grateful that no one had let Iris come down here.

She was still watching through the surveillance video though, so Barry stared at the camera apologetically before opening the breach.

"See you in the future," his older self declared as he walk backwards towards the growing portal, then he winked out of existence.

"Damn he's really the fastest," Jesse commented under her breath when she joined the group half a second too late.

The last few minutes passed in a daze for Barry.

When he returned to the Cortex, he stared at Iris' teary face instead of peering at the disappearing lightning shower in the sky.

When the rest of the team rejoiced in the averted catastrophe, he wondered if he was going to have nightmares about this night. 

He'd thought that his victory on Zoom would be the most bitter of all.

How he had been wrong.

"You guys, I know he looked just like Barry, but he wasn't," Joe said as he dropped a hand on Barry's shoulder. "You did the right thing, son."

Did he? He glanced at Iris, and while her reassuring smile told him that she forgave him yet another tragedy caused by his mistakes, it didn't reach her eyes. 

"Sorry to leave so abruptly," Jay started as he extended his hand towards Barry, "but this just reminded me that my own earth might need a speedster at any given moment. Always an honor, Flash."

"I owe you so much, Flash," Barry replied as they shook hands. "If you need anything..."

"I know where to find you, yes," the older speedster acknowledged with a wide smile before he tipped his hat to the rest of the group. "To victory, however costly, because that's what heroes do: make personal sacrifices for the greater good."

"To moving forward," he added as he stared back at Barry.

"To moving forward," Barry repeated when the trail of the older speedster's lightning flashed in the room.

"You're not leaving right now too, are you?" Wally asked Jesse.

"I was ready to enjoy some Big Belly Burger before we got rudely interrupted, so no, we're not leaving right this moment," Earth-2 Wells answered, cutting the remaining tension in the room.

The group filed out of the cortex, Barry feeling much better yet not quite good enough when Iris wrapped an arm around his waist and let him pull her closer with an arm over her shoulders.

* * *

"Miss West, I'm sure we can come to an arrangement," Senator McMillan claimed as his bodyguards rained bullets in her direction. 

Arrangement her ass. 

It was Iris' _first_ day back in the field, and this wasn't even official so no one knew that she was there. The first gunshot had destroyed her cellphone, so she couldn't send a distress signal to S.T.A.R. Labs and Barry. At least her good ol' recorder was immortalizing this moment.

Not for the first time, the journalist wished that she had a fancy smartwatch like Twain on Earth-51. She should've asked Cisco 51 for one a week ago, before he breached Barry and her back home.

She was about to duck behind a pillar when her vision shifted.

Right, the infrared signature that had drawn her to the abandoned factory in the first place.

It came from behind double sealed metal doors on her left. 

There were bodies in there. Moving ones with high heat signatures, and still ones with abnormally low heat signatures.

And that huge blob of fiery red...No way, an incinerator?

"Over here!" One of the body guards shouted as he detected her—thank goodness it looked like he was out of ammo.

His co-workers still had a few bullets to spare, but Iris had trained with one of the best thieves of a parallel universe, so she knew how to take cover. 

She tried to get another look at that cremation room, mentally working on a title for her next scoop—Senator McMillan caught _red-handed_? No, only Cisco would get the joke...Blood Donation Patron Revealed To Be A Cold-Blooded Trafficker? Too long, West...

"If you'd stop moving for a second, I'm sure that we would have come to a compromise a while ago," the politician said mildly as he pointed his own gun at Iris.

 _I'm the best friend and future wife of a speedster,_ Iris thought to herself, _staying still hasn't been an option since the particle accelerator explosion._

Without overthinking it, she launched herself at McMillan and successfully confiscated his firearm before kicking him down to his knees.

His bodyguards pointed their guns at her several seconds after Iris pointed her stolen one at the Senator.

"Here's the arrangement I propose," the reporter said with an unwavering voice. "Your goons drop their weapons and you won't be charged for attempted murder on top of everything I'll pin on you for those unregistered firearms and those bodies you're having burned.

"How does she know about the bodies?" McMillan shouted at his employees. "You said that you locked the doors!"

Was that a confession admissible in court? Iris would bet on it but she'd have to ask Cecile.

Before she could gloat about it, she felt herself lose balance as a gush of air lifted her hair and skirt. The next second she was bracing against the very familiar dwarf wall of the Jitters rooftop as her hair swept down.

The gun in her right hand was taken away, and for a second Iris frowned at Barry peering at it.

How had he found her without getting a signal? 

"Good, it's unregistered too, so he can't file anything against you first," he commented offhandedly before putting the safety back on and giving the gun back. 

Iris silently slipped the firearm in her handbag—she planned on keeping it, just to scare off the next thug who'd think of aiming at her—and waited for her fiancé to lecture her about diving headfirst into dangerous situations without thinking. 

Seriously, he was getting better at it than her father, even Wally had said so. 

But Barry just raised an eyebrow at her. 

"Good thing I put a tracker on your recorder, it's the only thing you keep secure at all times," he told her as he pointed at her coat pocket with his chin. 

That's when Iris noticed his clothes. Not the Flash suit, but civvies. They weren't black, but she didn't remember ever seeing them or those shoes in their shared walk-in closet, and her fiancé hadn't gone shopping recently.

"Barry," she whispered, shock freezing her on the spot.

He blinked at her in surprise, and for a second Iris stupidly thought _no, that's my Bear_ , but of course it was. 

"Yeah?" He finally answered cautiously.

"Barry!" she exclaimed as she threw her arms around him.

He didn't return the hug at first, and Iris was reminded of the fear and disgust that she had felt months ago when she'd realised that she was hugging Barry's time remnant instead of Barry himself.

Had it really been just a few months? It felt like a lifetime ago that she had tried to get away from the future version of the love of her life. 

The way he eventually returned her hug confirmed that this wasn't the Barry she'd woken up in bed with. That Barry didn't hug her like it was the first time in ages.

"I thought you were stuck in the Speed Force," she told him without pulling away, and smiled when he tentatively kissed her hair.

"Didn't like it there, it was as bad as I remembered it," future Barry joked as he slightly loosened his embrace, and now it felt like a regular Barry's hug.

"How?" Iris questioned as she peeled her nose from his collarbone to peer at him.

"Used the quark sphere with my DNA," he explained as he brought a hand up to smooth down her hair.

Iris wondered if he preferred it curly. Both of them had looked at her natural curls with a hint of something she couldn't define but that had made her feel warm.

"But that didn't work for Jay," the reporter remembered.

"Because the Speed Force isn't _that_ stupid," the speedster let her know with a shrug that made her shrug too. "Just dropping his DNA there with nothing else was like placing a pop star's wax statue in front of a fan waiting for an autograph. At first the fan would get excited about the life size model of their idol, but eventually they'd get mad for being stood up."

"Did you just compare the Speed Force to a star-struck fan?" Iris asked with a chuckle.

"The Speed Force adores us speedsters," he confirmed with a laugh of his own.

"So how did you do it?" She asked seriously after a comfortable moment of silence.

"Instead of a wax doll I dropped a heartfelt apology and a refund," he answered still lightly.

"Speak plainly Bartholomew," Iris demanded with a slap to his shoulder. 

"Ow, okay okay!" he replied as he stepped away but shifted his hands from her waist to her shoulders. 

"I told the Speed Force that I didn't want to stay, and gave away my powers as a price for my escape," he informed her.

Iris blinked.

"But, you're still a speedster," she pointed out with a wave of her hand.

"My other powers," he specified as he dropped his hands and Iris instinctively opened one palm to link it with one of his.

"You stole those powers, didn't you?" She interrogated him as she let him twirl her as if they were dancing. "You had Cisco make something for you to get more powerful. That's not a refund!"

"Either the Speed Force didn't notice or didn't care about it," future Barry speculated as he drew her back to him and started to sway them.

"What are you doing?" Iris asked him with a smile.

She felt like she recognized the song he was moving them to.

"Having our first dance now, since I won't be here the day of the wedding," he answered calmly. "You really should just cut the guests list in half and do the reception downstairs. That's what he thinks too."

Iris started considering the feasibility of the proposal, then the first part of his answer registered.

"You won't be here?" She reiterated shakily. "Where will you be?"

"Wherever you'll want me to be," he told her as he cupped a hand around her cheek. "Iris, most of your family doesn't even know about meta-humans, how do you plan on explaining me? I think I already graduated from the 'evil twin' status, so even that won't make a good inside joke."

"That's not funny!" The future bride admonished him as tears of relief blurred her vision.

"You thought that I was going to leave you again," he whispered in understanding as he gently swiped away a tear with his thumb. 

"You did, " she accused him quietly. "You let me think that you were gone forever for _days_."

"I had to get everything in order," he told her. "Moving furniture across universes is an interesting experience."

"You were on Earth-572?" Iris questioned. "But Bear didn't find you there! He said that there was no trace of you."

"That was before the lightning storm, so I was too fast for him to see me," the time remnant confided. "By the way, remember the Iris West and Barry Allen there?"

"How could I forget? The one pair of doppelgangers who ruined my multiverse soulmates theory," the reporter mumbled with a frown.

She frowned deeper at the grin Barry gave her.

"What?" she asked impatiently. 

"Reverb and Killer Frost lied," he informed her. "Neither of them killed our doppelgangers."

"What? Why would they lie about that?"

"Lieutenant Iris West and Crime Lord Barry Allen were secret lovers," he almost sang-song as he started swaying again. "They couldn't be together publicly in Central City, so they faked their deaths and moved abroad to fix that injustice. Reverb wanted to be the new boss so Barry gave him permission to brag about killing him."

"But...Reverb said that Barry killed his best friend and almost killed the other," Iris remembered from her brief conversation with the Cisco Ramon of Earth-572.

"Like I said, Reverb wanted to be the boss," future Barry stated. "He thought that the three of them together—him, Firestorm and Killer Frost—could defeat that Barry. They even used his Iris as bait. Didn't turn out the way they expected, but Barry let Reverb have their wish to inherit his crime network in exchange for the lie."

"How do you know all that?" Iris asked skeptically.

"I might have interrogated Reverb on my last day there," he confessed.

"You tortured Cisco?" The journalist asked, horrified by the idea. 

"The only people I've ever harmed physically are other speedsters who I knew would fully recover," the time remnant reminded her. "No, I didn't torture _that_ Cisco, I threatened to torture his Caitlin and he told me everything. These two are also quite a constant across universes, under the tragic condition of Ronnie's death."

"They're so cute together," Iris commented happily. "I mean, they've always been cute together but now they're like, cotton candy sweet and fluffy now."

That used to be her and Barry, she knew because Wally always teased them about it. Then Iris temporarily died and Barry lived two weeks without her.

While their relationship was still sweet, it wasn't light enough anymore to qualify as fluffy. They'd been through so much tragedy individually and together—they talked about it for half an hour every day, since they couldn't imagine telling a shrink about their less than ordinary lives—that the only moments that qualified as fluffy were the sleepy nights and occasional lazy mornings, or the seconds of post-orgasmic bliss that Iris could swear were getting longer the more she and Barry made love. 

Oh, yeah, while their relationship wasn't so fluffy anymore, it had gained a few degrees in hotness.

Iris wasn't complaining, she liked sex and sex with Barry had always been fantastic, but ever since she came back to life, she could count on one hand the number of days they'd gone without making love after that chaste first week on Earth-51.

And it never got boring or repetitive. More often than not they got emotional, but occasionally it was all about pleasuring each other. Every single time Iris' mind was blowned by her nerdy best friend's skills in the bedroom.

"Earth-1 to Iris," future Barry pulled her mind out of the gutter just to dump it right into the sewers.

 _Oh God_ , if Barry was that passionate after just _two weeks_ of missing her, how much crazy could their sex lives get if he'd missed her for _centuries_?

"I need to get back to work," Iris blurted out as she stepped away from Barry's time remnant before her body could give away her thoughts.

"Sure, hang on," he said before holding her in his arms and speeding her to CCPN, telling her that he'd get her car back for her—it was still parked a block away from the abandoned factory.

When Iris finished working on the articles she had due that week—Scott had thankfully not gone easy on her just because she 'had been abducted for ten weeks'—her mind finally brought up an important question:

How was she going to navigate her life with _two_ Barry Allens?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings in this chapter for:
> 
> 1) Lots of fake science and Speed Force shenanigans, you know the drill!
> 
> 2) Iris thinking about sex. There's nothing explicit, but if that's not your thing anyway you may stop reading after the paragraph starting with "That used to be her and Barry" near the end of Iris' POV.
> 
> Does this fic need a "polyamory" tag? Is it even polyamory if two out of the three partners are the same person???
> 
> In case you skipped the opening notes, please leave a comment if you made it this far! In any case, thank you for sticking with this fic!


	15. Another Hero—Cisco(Vibe)/Future Barry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An eventful epilogue. Do you remember Fallout aka Subject Seven?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it! Not the happy ending I was going for when I first started this fic, but it's definitely more interesting than the original ending, I promise.
> 
> The nickname 'Sav-Barry' is borrowed from swagstudentmilkshake5, who's left amazing comments on this fic!

**Two years later**

“Alright guys, Barry’s on his way back from ARGUS, Fallout has been successfully received and contained,” Cisco informed the team members who were in the field: Iris, Wally and Linda had just entered the elevated radiation zone. “Remember that Linda has to be out within seven minutes to avoid radiation poisoning. Take pictures and leave! The radioactive residue core is right…”

“That way!” Iris voice came through the com channel just as The Flash’s tracker signal overlapped with hers on the monitor.

“Wally, you get Linda close enough to get the pictures,” the team leader instructed his brother-in-law, “then get her back to S.T.A.R. Labs so Caitlin can check her up. Help CCPD set up a safety perimeter on your way back.”

“Be safe!” Iris shouted at her brother and her friend before the noise of static told Cisco that Kid Flash had sped ahead.

“Let’s get people out of here,” Barry’s voice resonated in the speakers just as the clack of Caitlin’s heels made its way into the Cortex.

“I called both Memorial Hospital and Central City Hospital, they’re geared up to treat radiation sickness,” she informed the engineer as she bent over the main console next to him to check everyone’s vitals. “My mother is sending the necessary equipment and drugs to the clinics and health centers closest to the high radiation zone.”

“I’m so glad that Carla is now an honorary member of Team Flash,” Cisco admitted as he used one hand to draw his fiancée closer for a kiss on the cheek.

With the other hand he checked the heat signature scans, which were of no use with all the fires in the zone of the explosion.

“Sorry guys, can’t help finding people in this chaos,” the breacher apologized.

“Well that’s why I’m here,” Iris reminded over the com before she told someone on site to watch their step.

“Oh, _I_ thought that we’re both here to make sure that the Citizen is the first newspaper to publish a detailed piece about this meta-human catastrophe,” Linda said amusingly. “Cisco, this camera is _amazing_ , though being able to see all those dangerous levels of radiation is scary. Don’t know how you do it, Iris!”

“It’s not all scary stuff like this all the time, thankfully,” Mrs. West-Allen reassured her friend slash coworker slash photographer. “Oh my god, there are at least twenty people over there, and that building looks ready to collapse!”

“I’d make it worse if I started speeding in and out of it,” Flash confirmed. “Vibe, we need back-up!”

“ _Good_ , I was starting to feel useless, here!” Cisco admitted as he hopped off his chair, Caitlin seamlessly taking his spot at the monitor.

And so, the breacher helped evacuate the innocents, and even took Linda back to the base to have her checked by Caitlin so that Wally could lead the early first responders to extinguish fires, tend to people who couldn’t be moved, and keep crimes of opportunity under control.

Two hours later, the whole team was back to S.T.A.R. Labs, smelling like burned tires and looking like miners from the first industrial revolution.

“Hey Cisco, hope you don’t mind, I’m using your computer to edit these beauties,” Linda let him know from his individual work station in the Cortex.

“No one ever asks me before using my stuff anyway,” the engineer mumbled as Caitlin pulled him into the infirmary. 

He was all poked and bandaged, pulling a S.T.A.R. Labs sweater over his battered body, when Sav-Barry whooshed in.

Yes, Cisco called the former Savitar ‘Sav-Barry’ in his head. Sue him.

Cisco eyed the time remnant's new suit with mild grudge: it was a brighter red than Barry's, the yellow accents were more pronounced, and he had to admit that the yellow boots were cool. He should've thought of that first!

“I’m sure the situation is under control now, but I heard about a radioactive explosion?” the older Barry asked after pulling off his cowl and looking around the Cortex.

Only Cisco and Caitlin were still in the room. Iris and Linda were either still in the showers or already heading back to the Citizen. Wally was back to uni—he was graduating this spring, so he had to attend classes and meetings as diligently as possible—and Barry was probably back to the site of the explosion in CSI mode with a HAZMAT suit that he didn’t need.

“Barry!” Cait exclaimed with a huge smile. “It’s so good to see you. How’s everyone up there?”

“Those without super-healing are still licking their wounds from the latest intergalactic battle against aliens,” Barry informed with a fake serious tone before widening his eyes. “Oh, wait, that’s just Batman!”

Cisco laughed with his friend's time remnant. The Dark Knight had been such an anti-social condescending ass the few times Team Flash had assisted him in Gotham, he didn't feel sorry for making fun of his lack of powers.

“Aren’t Oliver and Laurel part of the team, too?” Caitlin asked with a semi-reproachful glare at Cisco. “They don’t have super-healing, either.”

“They’re not at the Watchtower that often,” Sav-Barry explained, “and Batman of all people decided that they’re not fit for space missions. I’ll go check if they need help in Star City, by the way. Felicity texted me a level 1 SOS earlier today but I think that she actually sent it days ago and I only got it once we got back to the Watchtower.”

Something, or rather _someone_ , got the speedster looking behind him towards the doorway even though Cisco couldn’t hear or see anything.

Just as Caitlin was about to ask Sav-Barry what was wrong, he turned around and opened his arms just in time for Iris to jump on him.

Cisco felt himself smile, and he and Caitlin looked away to give their friends some privacy.

A week or so after Jay Garrick was freed from the Speed Force, Barry and Iris had informed the team that Savitar was free too, and had asked everyone if they could forgive him.

Cisco and Caitlin were grateful enough about Caitlin’s cure to put the time remnant’s wrong doings behind them, but not everyone had been so forgiving of the former speed god.

Julian had spat some colorful British expletives before storming out of S.T.A.R. Labs that day, and had only returned weeks later to announce his return to England.

Wally had refused to forgive future Barry, but Cisco suspected that it was only in solidarity to Joe, who gave Barry and Iris the silence treatment for a whole week afterwards.

H.R., who was currently at a conference with the now Dr. Tracy Brand, had been his sweet self and had shaken hands with the time remnant. Tracy on the other hand had refused to even acknowledge the speedster’s existence.

With the team in disagreement about letting Sav-Barry join the fold, the Gotham mission had been a god-sent. A very confused Oliver had asked the Team for backup to help catch a bunch of rogue assassins who had fled to the crazy city. Both Barrys and Cisco had answered the call, while Wally and Iris had remained as Central City’s protectors— _“brother-sister crime fighting unit, baby!”_ Wally had exclaimed enthusiastically. Meeting Batman had been unexpected but fortuitous because Doomsday's arrival had also been unexpected.

Superman and Wonder Woman had been part of the next few missions in Gotham, and don't you worry dear reader, Cisco got those two's autographs.

After spending a lot of time with Team Arrow and Team Batman, Sav-Barry had appeared in the Cortex in the middle of a tiny meta-human crisis one day to announce that he was joining the Justice League and leaving Central City for an indefinite period of time.

If even Joe had looked sorry to see the time remnant go—Sav-Barry had helped protect Barry’s identity as The Flash when the Trickster had planned on exposing it—one could imagine just how devastated Iris had been. 

The time remnant had visited a few times since, but it had been at least six months since he had dropped by. Iris definitely had the right to make their reunion extra dramatic.

“Iris, are we heading back or… Hey Barry! Weren’t you going back to…Oh!” Linda stuttered, kinda stepping on her friend’s moment, but both Iris and Sav-Barry smiled as she apologized for the interruption.

“You ladies need a ride back to the Citizen?” the speedster offered.

Linda had quit CCPN shortly after Iris and gone back to school for an associate degree in contemporary photography. When Iris had opened the Central City Citizen a few months ago, Miss Park had been the first to apply for a job. Now the newspapers had a dozen more employees, so while Iris and Linda were usually the first to get whiffs of a good story, they knew how to delegate duties.

“Actually I was thinking of checking on Wally, Iris?” Linda requested not-so-subtly. “I’m done with the pictures for tonight’s edition and Kamilla is still on site taking pictures of first responders for the morning paper, so…”

“Yeah, go, take the day off, I’ll send you the draft of the article,” Mrs. West-Allen replied with a grateful smile.

“I’ll breach you to CCU,” Cisco told Linda as a gush of air announced the departure of Iris and her long-distance husband from another timeline.

“Actually, don’t worry about it Cisco, thanks,” the photographer declined the offer with a quick shake of her head. “I’ve been hanging out with Iris’ brother a bit too much lately, and he’s starting to get ideas,” she explained when Cisco raised his eyebrows in question.

“I’ll drive back to the Citizen and make sure everything else is ready for the evening paper,” she let him and Caitlin know as she stepped towards the exit.

“Good luck!” both Cait and Cisco wished her as she exited the Cortex.

That left the engineer and the doctor alone in the whole building.

“We haven’t had such an eventful day here in Central City in a while,” Cisco’s fiancée commented casually as she made to grab her phone. “Let me call mom to get updates on those…”

“Actually babe,” Cisco cut her off as he gently grabbed her wrist, keeping her fingers just out of reach of the device, “how about you let her update you once she’s done? You know how she gets testy and thinks that you don’t trust her when you call her repeatedly.”

“Oh, you’re right,” Cait admitted as she easily let him tuck her against him while he used his free hand to open a breach. “Where are we going?”

“Home,” he answered as he pulled her into the portal.

“Right, we have dinner with your family!” Caitlin remembered as they landed in their new place. “I’m glad that I bought the ingredients for the guatita ahead of time.

“About that, my abuela said not to bother bringing anything,” the breacher informed his partner as he walked her backwards towards the bedroom. “My tia Ana is coming, and she’s the queen of guatitas. No one else is allowed to make it if she’s already bringing some.”

“Awww, I had watched so many videos for the recipe,” Caitlin mildly pouted. “And now we have too many hours on our hands.”

“Exactly,” Cisco confirmed in his most seductive voice.

Eventful days were indeed a rarity nowadays, as it seemed that most criminals finally got the message that, if they ever got tried anything villainy, there were two Flashes and occasionally a breacher ready to dump them at CCPD or Iron Heights.

This was why Cisco and Caitlin had decided that it was safe enough for them to plan for their future. Their wedding was in two months, and Caitlin wanted them to start on the children right away, stressing out that she wanted a minimum of two-years gap between each of their future three children.

So, between a morning of doing some damage control after an unsuspecting truck driver turned into a radioactive bomb and an evening spent in his abuela’s crowded house with his family, Cisco spent wonderful hours in bed with his future wife, seizing the opportunity to ‘hone his craft.’

* * *

Barry was taking advantage of the speeding feature Cisco had installed on his TV to catch up on shows while Iris was furiously typing up her article.

She was seated perpendicular to him, her back against the arm of the couch and her legs swung over his lap. His fingers itched to grab her feet and massage them to relieve all the stress she’d undoubtedly accumulated in them while helping evacuate people earlier that morning. He knew that any intimate contact would distract her, however, so he focused on the boring—no, _mediocre_ —season finale of Game of Thrones. Wait, okay, _that_ scene in episode 3 with the Unsullied escorting Melisandre to the trenches was great. He had to rewatch that at regular speed some time. Good music and terrific acting.

Five minutes later, he switched off the screen, blinking in disbelief. Was that truly the ending of one of the most popularly acclaimed shows of this decade?

“Done!” his wife said as she clapped her laptop shut and placed it on the coffee table before scooting closer to him. “Also, I forgot to say: _welcome home_ , babe.”

He turned her chaste peck on the lips into a deep, breath-taking kiss, and lifted Iris to straddle him so that she wouldn’t crank her neck.

“Missed you,” he whispered against her lips when he remembered that he had news to share. “I’ve missed you so much Iris…”

“I’ve missed you too,” she replied as she nuzzled his nose with hers. “How long are you staying this time?”

The few visits he’d made since becoming a resident of the Watchtowers had all been shorts, a few days-long at most.

Joining the Justice League two years ago had been a tough decision to make for the time remnant. He hadn’t wanted to separate with Iris, but he also hadn’t felt worthy of her after all he’d done to save her life. 

_You’ve done a lot of bad things, but you deserve to atone for them, and to find happiness._

Iris’ words back on Earth-51 had weighed in his decision. While he still maintained that he couldn’t be happy without her love, he’d decided to atone for his sins by joining the greatest heroes of the planet, to protect humanity on a global and intergalactic scales. 

Barry couldn’t lie: most of the last two years had been a blast, what with improving the control on all aspects of his powers thanks to Batman’s crazy training regimen; seeing places on earth that he didn’t know, like Themyscira and Atlantis, and going to inhabited planets beyond the Milky Way; making friends with extraordinary people who knew of his dark past yet only judged him for who he was right now; being part of a great team without being its leader, therefore not feeling the pressure of coordinating a mission or of being the key player to its success.

Nevertheless, each time the team returned to the Watchtower after a mission, Barry had felt homesick, especially when he would glimpse into his younger self's memories and see the other Barry enjoy a welcome home kiss from Iris.

The short visits to Central City weren’t enough. Neither were the memories of his younger self.

In fact, the time remnant had been taken aback at how often the other Barry was away from home, away from Iris. In the last six months alone, the younger speedster had gone to help Team Arrow in Star City three times, had crossed worlds at least twice for days at a time, _and_ had been stuck in another dimension for six days due to a misunderstanding with John Constantine in London—thankfully Zatanna, a powerful magician and friend of Batman (that guy had friends, yes, _shocking_ ), had helped get him out.

Even now, the younger Barry was going to spend the rest of the day processing a ridiculous amount of data about the radioactive explosion caused by this meta-human. The CDC was probably sending people on site, and as the new supervising CSI at CCPD, Barry Allen would have to submit a preliminary report to them. The younger speedster wouldn’t be home until late in the evening.

“Barry?” Iris’ voice pulled him out of his thoughts. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” he answered with a smile, though he could see that she wasn’t convinced. “I wanted to wait until Barry got back to share some good news, but it looks like he’ll be stuck at work for a while. I might have to replace him in a couple hours. He must be frustrated having to do everything in that HAZMAT suit right now.”

“What good news?” Iris questioned him as she ran a hand through his hair then massaged his scalp with the pad of her fingers.

Barry closed his eyes to enjoy the blissful sensation, quite literally melting into the couch. His moan of pleasure came out as a purr thanks to the unintentional vibration of his vocal cords. 

“Babe, _tell me_ ,” Iris demanded as she nipped at his jaw.

“Well, if you’d stop distracting me!” he jokingly complained, laughing when Iris stuck out her tongue at him.

God, he’d _missed_ her.

“I’m planning on staying in Central City…Permanently,” he informed her, watching her face closely to gauge her response.

She froze for a few seconds, then smiled so widely that the speedster wondered if her powers had evolved and now she could emit radiations of her own.

“Barry!” she exclaimed before knocking the breath out of him with a tight hug. “Oh my god, this is…”

She pulled away then kissed him without completing her sentence, and Barry didn’t mind.

He was too ecstatic knowing that Iris looked genuinely happy to have him back.

Since Earth-51, the time remnant had worried that she would eventually decide that she didn’t want him around after all, since she already had her own Barry.

When he’d reluctantly accepted the replica of his younger self’s wedding band the night after Barry and Iris’ wedding ceremony, he’d internally guessed that it was a pity gift from the married couple. 

He knew that deep down, the other Barry felt uneasy about sharing the love of his life. But despite making progress in becoming a better person, the time remnant was still too selfish to care. As long as Iris said that he could stay, he would.

The former Savitar wanted to bathe in her light and enjoy the warmth of her affection and care for eternity. He would _never_ deserve her love, but would gladly accept it since she was generous enough to offer it.

“What about the Justice League?” Iris asked, her smile dimming. “I can’t imagine them being happy to lose one of their founding members.”

“Actually, I was thinking of sending Wally to replace me,” he proposed as he rubbed a hand up and down her back, the other one resting idly on her thigh. “If he’s interested. From what I’ve gathered from Barry’s memories Wally isn’t getting much faster, and that would change if he went to the Watchtower. Batman is too serious ninety-nine percent of the time, but his strictness has helped me improve as a speedster in record time. Plus, seeing more of the world and possibly other worlds of this universe might be a cool post-college adventure for him. I’m sure he’s getting bored of seeing the same streets everyday.”

“Oh,” Iris reacted, blinking repeatedly before smirking. “You know, I’m not sure that Wally would want to leave Central City so soon after graduating.”

“Why not?” the time remnant asked, confused.

“Believe it or not, my baby brother has developed a huge crush on Linda.”

It was Barry’s time to blink.

“Linda,” he repeated. “Linda Park? _Your_ best friend and coworker? _My_ sorta ex-girlfriend?”

“One and the same,” Iris confirmed, pursing her lips to block a smile. “And yeah, put that way it sounds weird…”

“I was going for 'disturbing', but weird is good too,” the speedster agreed. “When did that happen?”

“Probably during one of the many times Kid Flash has come to our rescue when our professional endeavors have put us in a bind…” the reporter admitted sheepishly.

“ _Iris_ ,” he chided softly.

“I have healing powers!” she quickly reminded him. “ _Plus_ hard-earned combat skills. I’d be fine on my own, but Linda is my best photographer, I need her in the field with me sometimes. I’m just not that good at protecting others in the middle of a shooting—”

“You can’t have Joe worry about you like that, he already has Cecile and his unborn child to worry about!” he pointed out. “And now that he's the Captain, he can’t be too happy about you arriving at crime scenes before whoever is the new Joe even shows up.”

“Detective Carter Tisdale,” the owner of the Central City Citizen informed him with a knowing smile.

“Tisdale?” he echoed, “As in Rob Tisdale, Singh’s husband?”

“He’s Rob’s cousin,” she confirmed. “Transferred from Gotham. I smell nepotism.”

“Well, good for Detective Tisdale,” the speedster commented. “Central City might be home to the impossible, but Gotham is home to the _insane._ Singh did well to have him move. Gotham would’ve burned the moment Batman left for the Watchtower if Batgirl and Robin hadn't been there.

“By the way, what’s Batman’s true identity?” Iris questioned him. “I have my suspicions, I just need you to confirm them.”

“I cannot confirm _or_ deny anything,” Barry answered cheekily, earning an eye roll from the reporter.

“You’ll tell me by the end of the day,” she claimed with confidence.

“Err, I think Barry needs a break,” he stated as he made to move her from his lap so he could stand up.

"No, Bear! You just got back," his wife whined as she clung to him. "At least tell me about your latest mission…"

The speedster was about to comply when both his and Iris' phones beeped with a message notification. It was a group text from Felicity.

 _'Hope you're not dealing with a crisis of your own over there, 'cause Level 3 and climbing over here!_ ' the hacker had sent.

"Iris," he said apologetically just as she frowned at the screen of her phone. 

She groaned in frustration but got off his lap anyway.

"I'll be back as fast as I can," the time remnant promised as he kissed her forehead.

"I can't believe that I was once worried about having two husbands," the journalist mumbled. "I don't know how Lois Lane manages sharing her _one_ spouse with the whole world."

"Iris," Barry whispered guiltily, and he grabbed her hand to bring them both in Flashtime to afford another lingering moment with her. 

This was definitely not how he had planned his life with her to be, back when he had taken her newly revived body to Earth-572. He'd dreamed on spending every waking moment with her, for he'd spent too long in the Speed Force without her.

"Sorry, I shouldn't complain," Iris amended with a dismissive wave of her free hand, but her reassuring smile didn't reach her eyes. "I knew what I signed up for when I married two superheroes."

"You're a superhero too," he felt the need to point out. "As a reporter _and_ as Wave."

"Don't call me Wave in front of Cisco unless you want to see me in a suit," she joked with a genuine smile.

"I _do_ want to see you in a suit," the time remnant admitted as he made a point to look her up and down. "Bet you'd wear it better than your doppelganger on Earth-51," he added with a smirk.

He felt better leaving Iris alone in his too big penthouse with the sound of her bashful laughter still ringing in his ears.

The time remnant did manage to return from Star City the next hour, and ran directly to CCPD to relieve his younger self from his tedious job.

"Do you even know how to type a preliminary epidemiological investigation report anymore?" the CSI questioned with a skeptical raise of his eyebrows. "I'm the meta-human expert, so my report will be as equally helpful to the CDC as the firefighters' and the hospitals. It has to be thorough."

"Hey, it's only been two years, and I can use the guide if I've truly forgotten," the member of the Justice League defended.

"Thanks man, but I'll be fine," the Central City hero assured with a shake of his head. "You go enjoy the limited time you have with Iris. And by that I mean 'keep her out of the streets', _not_ 'be her backup when she decides to follow a dangerous lead'."

"Don't act like you wouldn't do the same," the older speedster commented. "And I have decided to stay for a while this time...Permanently, ideally," he added less confidently than he'd thought he would.

It was one thing not to worry about his other self when he was alone with Iris, quite another when he was staring right at the original Barry Allen of this timeline.

The two speedsters stared at each other for a good minute, which felt like an awkward eternity.

Then the younger of the two smiled that one-sided smile with the slightly narrowed eyes Barry never knew he wore until he'd started interacting with himself. That smile he had when he was happy to know that Iris would be happy.

"Welcome home," the CSI simply said before he turned back to his computer.

And while indeed, this was not how he'd pictured having Iris back two years ago, Barry Allen's time remnant couldn't be happier that he'd managed breaking the time loop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That last sentence was so corny but eh *shrugs*
> 
> Thank you for sticking with me until the end! Comments are always appreciated.  
> I have other WA fics btw ;)
> 
> Season 6 is amazing so far, guys! It's a bit overcrowded with minor storylines imo, but Barry is back to being the focus of the show so I'm happy.


End file.
